


Silent Measures

by EirianErisdar



Series: The Music of the Spheres [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Coruscant Underworld (Star Wars), Fluff, From Shili to Glee Anselm to Stewjon and Coruscant and back, Gen, Good old father-son emotional constipation, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27525904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EirianErisdar/pseuds/EirianErisdar
Summary: Oneshots and snippets set around events and futures ofThe Silent Song, an AU of Obi-Wan's apprenticeship where he cannot speak from birth.Originally posted to FFN since 2013, crossposted to AO3 November 2020.
Relationships: Obi-Wan & Huei Tori & Ezhno, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn & Xanatos, Qui-Gon Jinn/Tahl (Star Wars)
Series: The Music of the Spheres [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011618
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	1. Culinary Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set between chapters 8 and 9 of _The Silent Song_ (between arcs 1 and 2)
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Souped Up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_0FT78HtSE&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=1)

"No, Obi-Wan, the scry-mint comes _after_ the hwotha-berries!"

There is a sharp echo as cooking implements clatter to the floor, and the Force flares with panic–

–before subsiding into a gentle swell.

Qui-Gon Jinn halts, hand outstretched. The pot of half-completed rycrit stew hovers at the edge of the stovetop. A small tidal wave of stew is flash-frozen in the air, paused at the crest of its climb up over the lip of the pot.

Qui-Gon spares his young apprentice a glance as he maneuvers both stew and pot back into its proper place with a flick of the Force.

Thirteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi, junior Padawan – and soon-to-be failed cook, apparently – hides his cooking-spoon behind his back and studies the floor. Intently. His apron is rather too large for him; it hovers a mere handspan from the tips of his bare toes.

The older Jedi heaves a sigh as he waves the induction plates to a mild simmer. "Padawan," he says, "I believe you may be slightly more nervous than you previously implied."

Up comes Obi-Wan's russet-haired head. He shakes his head vehemently in denial.

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. "Am I to understand you are _not_ nervous, then, and two almost-shattered mixing bowls, three ruined cooking-cloths, and one half-burnt stew-spoon are all victims of some _other_ reason for your clumsiness?"

Obi-Wan wisely decides to regard that question as rhetorical.

Sentinel to this strange event, The Pot bubbles merrily beside them. The Pot is exactly what it is – a steel cooking vessel, dented at the base from too many years of being slammed into countertops in Qui-Gon and Tahl's respective kitchens. It has also carried food between their two Temple apartments for the past two decades, once a week, without fail save for missions and subsequent trips to the Temple healers.

It is The Pot, much-worn and very, very precious.

Now a month into his apprenticeship, Obi-Wan finds himself tasked with producing a dish for this weekly meal. It should not be difficult; Qui-Gon himself had demonstrated it on the first day of the apprenticeship.

It would be all well and good - but it would also appear that Obi-Wan does not have a knack for culinary instinct.

Qui-Gon's face is _very_ composed as he watches Obi-Wan, _thank you very much_ \- though he forces down the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose when his apprentice's gangly elbow nearly upends the pitcher of bantha cream set beside the stovetop.

It is astonishing, really, how hands so steady and quick on a lightsaber in the training halls can turn into bumbling fingers slipping dangerously off the handle of a vegetable knife.

Adolescents. No different around the galaxy, Jedi or not.

Obi-Wan's ears are scarlet as he corrects his grip on the small blade and brings it down on the stickli-root with a determined _thunk._ It takes a good long while, but eventually the roots are sliced. Qui-Gon notes blandly that the slices are nearly all exactly the same size and dimension. A month of mastership to a perfectionist does away with surprise about things like this.

"Good," he says quietly, fighting back a grin at the startled jolt of small shoulders. "Put that in The Pot, cover it, and monitor the heat. Add that pinch of scry-mint with bantha milk in ten minutes."

The short braid sticking out of Obi-Wan's frazzled head of spiky hair bobs as he nods. He wipes his hands carefully on his apron, pulls over a barstool, and settles down to watching the liquid bubble with an intensity usually only reserved for Krayt dragons stalking their prey.

Across the living area and through the open balcony doors, Coruscant Prime sinks below the kaleidoscopic, jagged horizon of Coruscant's Temple district, turning the towers of the city-planet into silver-edged sundial markers. Huge bars of alternating golden light and cool shadow move languidly across the kitchen floor.

Qui-Gon glances at the chrono on the wall and wonders if Tahl would be amenable to having dinner a full hour past their customary agreement. With that in mind, he moves away from the kitchen for a moment, pulling out his comlink.

" _Qui."_ Tahl Uvain's voice is wry with amusement, as always. The greeting itself holds a wealth of unsaid humour.

Aquiline features half-hidden in the unlit shadows of the short hallway, Qui-Gon grins. "Tahl. I hope you're not hungry yet. We might be a while coming."

" _Oh, the poor dear. What does he look like, right now?"_

Qui-Gon lowers his comm for a moment and leans subtly out of the doorway.

Obi-Wan is still there, sat ramrod-straight on the barstool, hands folded in his lap as he stares down the pot of stew with something akin to fiery resolve flickering in his clear blue eyes.

Qui-Gon ducks back into the shadows. "Focusing enough to construct a lightsaber."

" _That bad?"_

"As though the lightsaber were the last hope of the Jedi against an impossibly resurrected Sith, even."

Tahl's laugh cascades over him. Qui-Gon's grin widens further.

" _I'll survive until two hours after evening bell."_

"We'll be done by then, Force-wills," Qui-Gon murmurs into the comlink. "…Though perhaps you should consider having a backup source of nourishment."

" _I have faith that between the two of you, you can cook a semi-decent meal, Qui. I survived your attempt at Corellian tea-cake that one Republic Day – I can consume about anything, at this point."_

"You've wounded me in the heart."

" _Save your inanities for table conversation. I'll see you two in an hour."_

Pocketing his comlink, Qui-Gon allows himself a moment to lean against the doorway and watch daylight seep between the buildings on the horizon. It is as though the light is pooling directly between the cracks in the planet surface, tumbling bright and unimpeded down the durasteel seams of the underlevels to blend into the neon lights of lower city.

A sharp, sickly-sweet smell reaches his nose.

He pivots on a heel and stares at the kitchen. _Oh no._

Obi-Wan is stood before the stove, one hand still grasping the lid of The Pot, and in the other–

An empty bottle of scry-mint.

Obi-Wan looks from his master to the container in his hand to the steaming pot and to Qui-Gon again. The look in the young Jedi's eyes has long gone past panic and morphed into something like calm resignation. He holds out the pot lid to Qui-Gon, and the tall Jedi moves forward to take it.

Qui-Gon winces as he spies the contents of The Pot. The entire concoction is now a very lurid _green._

Obi-Wan sets down the empty container in his other hand with poise and pulls flimsy and stylus from his belt. Qui-Gon accepts the note with equally controlled composure.

_I didn't know the openings in the container were so large. I'm sorry, Master. What do we do now?_

"What we do now," Qui-Gon says as he reaches over to flick Obi-Wan's braid, "is _cheat."_

Obi-Wan makes a half-hearted attempt to duck away from the teasing braid-flick. He is unsuccessful, though he watches his master's next move with a sharply observant gaze.

Qui-Gon reaches into the cabinet above Obi-Wan's head, pushes aside a few plastoid boxes, and removes a packet of unidentifiable orange powder.

Obi-Wan leans forward and squints at it for a moment, before rearing back, eyes narrowing in accusation.

"Yes, this is artificial flavouring," Qui-Gon says, unaffectedly. "And _yes,_ specifically monosodium glutamate, that lovely compound invented so many millennia ago that somehow still works on humanoid taste-buds as it did then. Finally, and most importantly, it is the only thing which can save your disaster of a rycrit stew."

Obi-Wan folds his arms and raises an eyebrow.

Qui-Gon is not finished. "Master Uvain will be sampling your concoction."

The packet is snatched out of Qui-Gon's fingers by an invisible pull and emptied into the pot before the Jedi master can say another word.

Obi-Wan gives the new mixture several enthusiastic stirs with a long wooden spoon, and carefully sticks his tongue out to sample it.

He blinks.

Qui-Gon watches him, warily.

Obi-Wan shrugs, as if to say, _Not bad._

Qui-Gon reaches past him to turn off the heat. "Shall we conclude this first chapter of your culinary efforts by committing it to be your _last,_ my very young padawan?"

Obi-Wan's answering bow is very deep and meaningful, indeed.

If they are both hiding smiles as they set The Pot down in Tahl's rooms a few minutes later, the Noorian Jedi wisely chooses not to comment on it.


	2. Silent Laughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible futures: Ahsoka meeting Anakin and Obi-Wan on Christophsis in the TSS universe (non-canon to the main story of The Silent Song)
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Of the Airship Academy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdAiPwxoTY&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=2)

Ahsoka Tano feels the thrum of the repulsors shiver up her new field boots, and quells the shudder before it can travel to her clenched fingers. She is not quite successful.

There is muffled boom as landing struts meet duracrete.

Ahsoka swallows past a throat completely dry and checks herself over. Her boots are shined to perfection, her belt buckled night, her lightsaber clean and oiled at her hip. The weight of the Akul teeth that frame the edge of her montrals carry the pride of her heritage; the new string of silka beads behind her right lekku her hope for the future.

Her hands unclench from beneath her newly-requisitioned bracers.

The transport has landed, and she is one durasteel wall away from Christophsis, war, apprenticeship, and a commission as Commander.

In the short moment before the ramp opens, she straightens her spine and cocks her head to a point just between polite deference and confidence. She is Ahsoka Tano, and she will soon be Anakin Skywalker's padawan. From the stories whispered between the Initiate dorms, he will most likely appreciate a little…attitude.

The thought makes her smile, ever-so-slightly.

The ramp thuds onto cracked duracrete. The light of Christophsis's sun spills into the dim hold, and Ahsoka has automatically descended halfway down the ridged metal before she fully registers the two figures waiting below.

One stands confident and cocksure, his robes a dark symphony of black and crimson, a scar skirting the edge of his right eye - eyes the colour of fire beneath earthy soil. The other, slightly shorter than the other, older, in flowing cream robes and white bracers to match, a curl about his lips that suggests a wealth of hidden humour, and eyes the deep, still blue of a silent sea.

Anakin Skywalker, and-

And?

Ahsoka glimpses the sheet of flimsy tucked into the older Jedi's belt.

_Oh._

Her heart skips a little at the realisation that she stands before two legends.

Anakin Skywalker may be the Chosen One, but Obi-Wan Kenobi - Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Silent Jedi. The master negotiator who does not speak; the Jedi that led a generation of young apprentices to wisdom and glory.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is _the_ Jedi. And he has earned that title without speaking a single word.

_I should have known it was Master Kenobi; I was sent here to bring a message to both masters._

Both senior Jedi seem surprised at Ahsoka's arrival, though they certainly show it in different ways. Master Kenobi's eyebrows raise just a fraction but relax almost immediately, as though he registers the surprise but accepts it, waiting calmly for an explanation. Master Skywalker's scar tightens, though, as he frowns down at her from an admittedly very high height.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he says bluntly, a broad, Outer-rim accent stretching his words.

Ahsoka almost starts. He sounds far younger than she had supposed.

Master Kenobi tilts his head slightly at this, and though Master Skywalker cannot possibly see the motion from where he stands, he flicks his gaze towards his former Master, a brief look of chagrin flashing over his features.

"I'm Ahsoka?" Ahsoka replies, deciding brashness is best met with confidence. "Master Yoda sent me to tell the both of you that you need to return to the Temple. There's an emergency."

Master Kenobi folds his arms thoughtfully as Master Skywalker explains - just as blunt as before and slightly too heatedly, in Ahsoka's opinion - exactly how pinned down the 501st and 212th are, and the utter mess that is both communications and Christophsis in general.

She replies as well as she can and offers to route a comm back to Coruscant through the orbiting cruiser. Master Kenobi's smile becomes a little less faint at this, as though he sees her move and approves.

One cut-off holoconference to the Temple later - Ahsoka had been quietly impressed at the speed with which Master Kenobi typed replies to Master Yoda's questions - she finds herself once again facing two inquisitive Jedi.

"Well, we'll have to hold out a little longer," Master Skywalker - no, _Anakin,_ because _Master Skywalker_ just doesn't seem to suit him - says, without any real heat.

Master Kenobi gives his head a little shake, pulling a stylus out from under his left bracer and penning a few quick lines across the flimsy at his belt. To Ahsoka's astonishment, he extends the flimsy to her. She bows automatically over it as she takes it, but then a gloved hand is on her shoulder, straightening her.

He smiles and shakes his head at her confusion, as if to say: _Forgo the ceremony._

Ahsoka opens the flimsy, and is struck with the smooth elegance of the script.

_My apologies, young one. I should have introduced myself earlier. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am your new master._

She blinks. _What?_ "I'm Ahsoka Tano," she replies as she hands back the flimsy, barely remembering not to bow - The flick of Master Kenobi's eyebrow says the motion does not go unnoticed - but she hurries on to avoid confusion. "I'm at your service, Master Kenobi, but I'm afraid I've actually been assigned to Master Skywalker."

The look on Anakin's face is priceless.

If there is any surprise in Master Kenobi's eyes, it is soon replaced by mischief. His beard does not quite hide his delight.

"What? Nonononono," Anakin splutters. It would appear shock galvanises him into motion; he circles around behind Obi-Wan and back to the opposite side, as though he is a small planetoid that escaped orbit, but suddenly decided it was not that good of an idea and so returned to its proper tether.

Ahsoka's eyes widen. _Huh._ So Master Kenobi is _Obi-Wan_ to her now? Maybe Anakin's personality is rubbing off on her already.

Obi-Wan runs a hand over his beard as the faint crowsfeet at the edges of his eyes crinkle. Ahsoka is sure he is hiding a grin.

Anakin is still rambling. "There must be some sort of mistake. _He's_ the one who wanted a padawan!" The latter is said as he points one black-gloved finger at his former master.

Obi-Wan gestures mildly back at him, unaffected.

"Hey, Obi-Wan, you can't do this!"

Obi-Wan looks pointedly at Ahsoka.

She folds her arms and narrows her eyes at Anakin. "Master Yoda was very specific. I'm assigned to Anakin Skywalker, and he is to supervise my Jedi training." _There._ _You can't send me back, now._

Amusement leaks over the edges of Obi-Wan's shields. If he is as formidable with shielding as he is with a lightsaber, Ahsoka is sure that inside, he is doing the Jedi-Master-equivalent of howling with laughter.

-That is to say, he pats a wide-eyed Anakin on the shoulder in a gesture of mock comfort, gives Ahsoka's back a firm push in her new master's direction, and then swaggers - there is no other word for it - over to where two gold-striped troopers are conversing quietly.

Ahsoka notices the one with command markings on his armour seems to know the Jedi is approaching even though he faces the complete opposite direction.

A voice sounds above her head. "You don't see how he communicates with his troops."

"No, I don't," she admits, turning back to where Anakin seems to have mostly calmed down.

"He holds all of the 212th Attack Battalion in his mind. At once." Anakin turns and begins to walk, tracing a path through the clutter and debris.

"What?" Ahsoka has to raise her voice above the shouts and orders of the troopers around them.

"Technically he's a High Jedi General," Anakin says. "That means he's in charge of a Systems Army - one of ten really big chunks of the GAR - but he personally commands the 212th. He gives general orders on text through HUDs, but on the ground he gives…impressions and images through his mental link with them. It's usually enough for them to get his commands."

Ahsoka's jaw drops. "But that's…"

"Close to six hundred minds, yes." Anakin makes this statement without any particular awe in his voice, as though this is not unexpected of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

A slight niggling at the back of Ahsoka's mind suggests that perhaps her suspicion is right. Obi-Wan Kenobi is…something. Something different.

"We'll sort this out later," Anakin mutters.

"Sorry, sort out what?" Ahsoka asks, jarred out of her reverie.

Anakin pulls up short, looking back at her. "The…apprenticeship thing."

"Oh." She doesn't know what to say to that.

Anakin raises one hand to scratch embarrassedly at his mop of brown hair. "Uh, it's not that we're going to send you back, it's just-" he pauses. "Let's see how this works out?"

Ahsoka looks up at him and sees a young man Knighted early because of war, just as she herself is now sent to the field earlier than any previous generation, simply because a commander is needed in battle. So different to Obi-Wan's steady, wise humour, obvious and constant even in the ten minutes she has interacted with him.

She can see why Anakin needs a padawan. But she can also see that he will not teach her alone.

"Okay," she says, simply.

Anakin smiles, and it is a flash of white teeth in a confident face. "Come on, then. I've got to introduce you to Rex."


	3. Gold Head-Stripes, Gold Tattoos (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set post-Ventrux, between chapters 24 and 25 of The Silent Song.
> 
> Ezhno meets Quinlan Vos, and chaos ensues.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Trashin' the Camp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6TQZMA5XV4&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=3)

"An' 'ere yer are, clean an' tidy an' all!"

Ezhno tightens the last fastening on the pristine new nappy and gives the bawling baby a wide smile. It would appear his canines are rather more prominent than a human's, though – Togruta genetics tend to lean in that direction – and so the human baby writhes with combined fear and displeasure.

"Ent no point in doin' that now, I ent 'earing ya, ya lump o' pastel blue…stuff," Ezhno says pointedly, picking up the infant firmly under the arms and placing her back in her cot. The wing of the Temple crèche is calm and dark in the late watches of the night, and the row of hover-cots hum calmly through the soles of Ezhno's bare feet as he makes his way across the chamber, checking each one. The other dozen or so babies slumber peacefully in their individual, transparisteel-topped cots, apparently undisturbed the howls of their sole awake counterpart, as opposed to their Togruta carer.

Ezhno mutters a word in gratitude to the inventor of soundproof cot-covers and heads back to his only awake charge.

The baby is flailing in her blankets, mouth open and face red, fat tears trailing down her dark, chubby cheeks. Ezhno takes this to mean she must be making quite the racket. He places an orange-skinned, long-fingered hand on the front of her little onesie, and feels the shudder of her wails though his palm.

"'Kay, 'kay," he soothes, picking her up again and allowing her to bury her face in the space between his left and back lekku. He pats her back gently, as he was taught to do, and feels her breaths calm, and hiccups fade.

It takes the better part of half an hour for the baby to calm down enough for Ezhno to put her back in her cot. She curls pliantly into her blankets as he leans over, presses a kiss into her curly hair, and closes the cot cover. Ezhno makes one more round of the floating cots, feet sure on the wooden floorboards, and then circles back to the pallet wedged in a corner of the room.

He stretches out flat with a luxuriant groan, curving his back like a loth-cat. The pallet molds into his aching face; he barely remembers to scrabble for the baby-monitor alarm before succumbing to slumber.

Barely two hours later, Ezhno is abruptly awakened by a buzzing between his fingers. He cracks open one golden-brown eye to squint at the flashing, vibrating alarm in his hand, and shuts his eye again.

Five seconds later, he musters enough courage to open both eyes and frown half-lidded at the dawn light filtering through the window. A glance at the row of cots reveals a flashing light from one of the cots: blue.

Blue, for unidentified liquid detected.

Ezhno wonders for a moment if the people who made the monitoring equipment had some bizarre sense of humour. Unidentified liquid in a sealed baby cot can only be one of two things.

Two seconds later, he is up, and one-point-seven metres of cranky Togruta teenager crosses the room to soothe yet another baby with fluid-containment issues.

He is late for morning classes, because he thought he would just take a quick kip after cleaning up baby number fifteen (astonishing, really, because there are only _thirteen_ babies in his assigned chamber) and ended up snoring completely past morning bell. The buzzer had somehow slipped under his pillow, and it going off had no effect on him at all.

Ezhno careens into Level II Galactic History five minutes late, the uniform marking him as ward of the Order crumpled and loose. He gives a bleary smile in response to Knight Ima-Gun Di's coolly raised eyebrow, and heads towards his seat in a gangly hurry. The students in his row, mostly junior padawans, shift aside to let him pass.

The Kajain'sa'Nikto Knight keeps a keen blue eye on him for a moment longer before commencing his lecture.

Ezhno focuses on the Jedi's lips, blinking exhaustion out of his own eyes. Reading humanoid lips has its similarities between each species, but the Kajain'sa'Nikto have a certain scaly quality to their skin that makes lip-reading the species particularly challenging.

Knight Ima-Gun Di's eyes flick to him for a moment, and then the Jedi turns casually towards Ezhno's side of the classroom, almost facing him fully.

Grinning, Ezhno sits back. It is much easier to understand the lecture, now.

All the padawans in the row in front of him suddenly whip their heads to the left.

Ezhno turns far more slowly. It is obvious that there must have been a terrific noise of some sort, judging by the dents in the wall where the hinged double-doors have very obviously smashed into either side of the doorway when they were thrown open.

Standing silhouetted in the white light of the corridor beyond is a young kiffar male sporting a grin as dazzling as the gold tattoo on the bridge of his nose, spread across both cheekbones.

"Hey, Master Di," he says, stepping into the classroom. The glint of a padawan braid peeks out from between masses of well-arranged dreadlocks, but the hand he raises in greeting is followed by an extremely rumpled sleeve and tunics stained with a variety of interesting marks, from engine oil to something that looks suspiciously like muja juice.

Ezhno tilts his head as he watches the other boy speak. The kiffar boy enunciates things very differently from most Jedi; he speaks with drawn-out vowels that change his facial expression with every opening of his mouth.

"Padawan Vos," Knight Ima-Gun Di replies, with a telltale drop of his shoulders. "I assume you have just returned from a mission."

"Yep," the padawan says, popping the _p_ with an obvious smack of the lips. "A six-month whopper. Master Tholme said since this is mid study-cycle, I should just turn up to class and see what you would advise me to do, yeah?"

Knight Di waves him towards the other students. "Sit next to mister Ezhno, here. We'll sort out a compact study schedule for all your missed material later." That done, the knight turns back towards the holoprojector.

" _Oh joy,"_ Quinlan mouths to himself as he stalks up to his seat. He may have not said it out loud, but to Ezhno, he might as well have shouted it.

But then Ezhno catches Knight Di speaking again out of the corner of his eye, and hurries to catch up.

Fifteen minutes later and six months into the events of the Tarisian civil war, Ezhno feels a tap of a 'saber-calloused finger against the back of his hand. He waits until Knight Di pauses to draw breath before flicking a quick glance at his datapad to check if it is still transcribing the lecture as it should.

He notices two things.

_ One: _ yes, although his datapad is still recording every word the Kajain'sa'Nikto knight is saying, this does not make the lecture any less dull.

_ Two: _ Padawan Vos has pushed a piece of flimsy in front of him, and if Ezhno thought _his_ handwriting was bad, Vos's is definitely worse.

_ Hey, Goldie, you're either verrrry concentrated on master I'm-Gunna-Die's lecture or you're a stickler for rules. I just whispered a greeting five times and you didn't even blink. Speaking of which, you're not a Jedi, are you? Explains the whole "mister Ez-No" thing that I'm-Gunna-Die had going on there. And your clothes. And also why your Force-signature isn't as bright as anyone else's. Anyway, what was my point? Oh yeah – I'm Quinlan Vos. Not at your service. Or anyone else's. But yeah, hi and all that. _

Ezhno looks up to ensure that Knight Di is still speaking – it would not do to look away for too long when the lecturer knows one's primary means of paying attention is by lip-reading.

Ezhno pulls his datapad closer to himself and begins to touch-type an answer to Quinlan's message while keeping his gaze locked onto Knight Di. He senses a minute shift from his left as the Kiffar boy leans closer to read it.

_ Hey,  _ Ezhno types, _My name's spelt Ezhno. Just Ezhno. I don't like "Goldie", so don't use it. I didn't answer you because I'm deaf, and I need to lip-read to keep up with what Master Di is saying. No, I'm not a Jedi. I'm a Ward of the Order, and that means I get to sit and write notes and take exams and things, all for free, if I work a day or two of the week. I'm-Gunna-Die is good nickname for him. I don't think I can ever un-hear it now. Get it?_

Just as Ezhno finishes the last part, Knight Di abruptly closes his mouth and throws a stare in their direction. Ezhno freezes in place, hands pausing over his datapad, before realising that the knight is staring not at him, but at the boy beside him.

"Is there something amusing about the subject of civil war, Padawan Vos?" Knight Di says, eyes narrowed.

Ezhno realises with a start that Quinlan must have laughed out loud upon reading the end of his message.

A glance to the side reveals the latter half of Quinlan's reply.

"–find that I've been missing some really interesting stuff these past six months," the Kiffar padawan finishes, flashing a wide grin.

Ezhno turns back to the waiting knight, who wears a distinctly unimpressed expression.

"Indeed," Knight Di says. "We shall have to remedy that."

Under a scrutinising blue gaze, neither Ezhno or Quinlan move a muscle in the remaining half-hour before lunch.

(:~:)

Ezhno expects lunch to be fairly dull. Both Obi-Wan and Huei are off-planet, and Garen had mentioned something about flying lessons the previous day. A glance around the wide second-level refectory reveals that Bant and Reeft are nowhere to be found.

Then again, there's always food.

He has just collected a double tray and jumped eagerly into a seat when someone sets down another tray opposite him, so forcefully that Ezhno feels the tremor of the table under his wrists.

Ezhno looks up. "'Ey," he greets, a little warily. He has never quite seen a Jedi like Quinlan Vos before.

"Hey," Quinlan replies as he slides languidly onto the bench. "Mind?"

"Nope."

"Appreciated." Quinlan makes an extraordinarily strange expression as he works up some spit and spits it into his hand. "Nice to meet you just now, Ezhno."

Ezhno stares at the calloused hand that is extended across the table, dripping spit onto the plastiform tabletop, and slowly begins to grin. He stands, works up a mouthful of togruta spit, and gobs it into his own hand.

"Eyyyy! A Jedi wiv 'n actual idea of 'ow ter meet people!" he exclaims, shaking Quinlan's hand enthusiastically.

Quinlan pumps Ezhno's arm with equal verve. "You're the only other person within a klick who's not afraid of spit!"

The Jedi sat at the surrounding tables appear either disapproving or disgusted; Quinlan glances over Ezhno's shoulder and pushes him hurriedly back into his seat.

_ Master Windu,  _ he mouths at Ezhno's questioning gaze.

"'E starin', like?" Ezhno half-whispers, unsure of the volume of his own voice.

A pause. "Nah, he's gone back to eating."

Ezhno shrugs, wipes his hand on a napkin, and digs into his double-portion of food. Quinlan copies with gusto.

"So," Quinlan says through a mouthful of food – Ezhno is both gratified Quinlan waited until Ezhno was looking up to speak, and disgusted with having to lip-read around food – "How long you been here?"

"'Bout six months, like," Ezhno replies. "Came in from Ventrux wiv lil' Obi an' 'Uei."

"Kenobi and Tori, then." Quinlan picks up a fork and goes to spear a meatball, but suddenly makes a face. Grabbing a napkin, he begins to polish the fork with vehemence.

"Wot ya doin'?" Ezhno asks.

"This fork was last inside Master C'Baoth's cheek," Quinlan replies shortly, scrubbing fiercely. "I know the kitchens must have cleaned it, but I'm gonna clean it a bit more, because _Master C'Baoth,_ you know."

"I dunno, really."

"Big, green, bearded snake-slug. Don't tell anyone I said that."

"Righ'," Ezhno says, chewing on a tasteless cube of…something. He reaches for a glass of blue milk to wash it down.

Quinlan inspects the fork. "I've been here for three years now, and the food doesn't get any better, trust me."

"I'll take wha' I c'n get."

Quinlan skewers him with a perceptive look. "Parents?"

"Didn' much like me deaf. Yours?"

"Murdered."

"Ouch. Sorry, mate."

"Yeah."

They both go back to eating for a while. Ezhno finishes his food and leans back, groaning.

Quinlan has both boots on the table, now. He waits until Ezhno has cracked open an eye before speaking. "You look tired."

"Crèche duty," Ezhno moans. "Them sticky lil' things needta be changed every half-hour, I swear. Thought I were choosin' the easier option, like, when they tol' me 'bout jobs. Twice a week, they said."

"You should do a bunk and run for it."

"Can't. Those lil' tots may be sticky, but they need me."

"What do you do in your spare time?"

"Hack stuff," Ezhno says, proudly. "I'm wizard wiv datapads n' things."

Quinlan takes his boots off the table and leans forward, a spark of mischief in his dark eyes. "I have an idea."

"Yeah?"

"You like holo-games?"

"I'm wizard at 'em too, though they ent allowed 'ere."

"Then meet me in the Temple Plaza tonight at three hours past evening bell," Quinlan says, eyes gleaming now. "There's a place I know."

"Yer allowed out?" Ezhno says, picking at his teeth.

"Does it matter?"

"Huh. Yer righ'. Seeya tonight."

Quinlan's tattoos stretch as he grins. "Yeah, see you, brother."

Blinking at the sudden epithet, Ezhno watches the kiffar boy wave jauntily and run off.

Huh. Quinlan Vos.

A new friend.

Ezhno wipes his still slightly sticky hand one more time on his uniform, and goes to put away his tray, grinning widely enough that a passing master frowns at him.

[if gte mso 9]> [endif] [if gte mso 9] Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE [endif] [if gte mso 9][endif] [if gte mso 10][endif]StartFragmentEndFragment</p

Four tables away, Mace Windu stares steadily at Ezhno's retreating back for a moment; but then Adi Gallia says something, and Mace files the thought away for later.


	4. Gold Head-Stripes, Gold Tattoos (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this chapter: [Through the Frontier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtDyQfNf2Dw&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=4)

The evening bell rings the third hour past sundown.

Ezhno holds his head tall as he marches down the wide entranceway. His uniform may be messy, and his boots scuffed, but he is a ward of the Order and entitled to come and go as he pleases.

The wide colonnades are silent at this hour; most Jedi are either congregated at the refectory, or more likely have left for their quarters after supper. This leaves the main entranceway of Temple cool and empty save for the masked Temple Guards that flank the enormous double doors themselves.

The white-masked Temple guards allow him to pass without question, double-bladed lightsabers silent at their backs. At sixteen and a ward of the Order, Ezhno is technically allowed to leave the Temple in his spare time; the door-warden will no doubt note that he has left, but apart from that, the whole of Coruscant is open to him.

Which, for lack of a better word, is pretty blasted _wizard._

Ezhno saunters down the Processional Way, and halts just before it joins the Temple Plaza proper, where crowds throng the bright boulevards between museums and entertainment lanes.

A lithe shadow slips out from behind the nearest statue.

Ezhno is far too used to Jedi stealth to react with anything other than a sigh when a hand lands on his shoulder.

"'Ey," he says.

"Hey," Quinlan returns. His gold tattoos glint across his cheekbones, barely visible beneath his raised hood.

"'Ow'd you sneak out?"

"Vents," Quinlan explains, as he leads the way into the crowds themselves. He turns his head back towards Ezhno as he speaks. "They're designed to keep things from slipping in, not out."

"Huh. You'll 'ave ter teach me sometime."

"Yeah."

They fall silent not long after that; it is difficult for them to move through the hordes of Coruscanti night-revelers and for Ezhno to lip-read at the same time. But eventually, the crowds thin as they slip into the darker alleyways at the edge of the plaza, halting in front of a dilapidated turbolift.

Ezhno frowns at it.

Turbolifts regularly service the first thousand or so levels of Coruscant, but the more grimy and out-of-repair they are, the deeper they usually go. The ones that connect directly to the Senators' Offices in the Senate district, for example, go no further than the first hundred or so levels; pressing a button for the ninety-fifth level below the surface is usually reserved for the lowest-ranked of senatorial staff, who cannot afford apartments any closer to the upper levels.

Turbolifts like this one go further. _Much_ further.

"'Ow deep're we goin'?" Ezhno asks as Quinlan pulls on a pair of gloves and strains at the metal-slatted door of the turbolift.

"Couple thousand levels," Quinlan answers, flashing a grin at Ezhno. "Hold on, can't talk, need to turn away for a moment. This blasted thing always gets stuck–"

With a terrific crash that Ezhno feels reverberate through the duracrete below them, the door slides open.

"There's only 'bout five thousand levels on Coruscant, mate," Ezhno says, as he follows Quinlan into the oil-streaked interior of the turbolift. At least he thinks it is oil. It…might not all be.

Quinlan faces him with another cocksure smirk. "Don't worry, we're not going to the _actual_ surface. That would be suicide. Speaking of which, wear this."

"Wot's this?" Ezhno stares at the roll of dirty cloth that Quinlan produces from a belt-pouch.

"Cloak. Your uniform's too neat, we'll get mugged or worse," Quinlan says, speaking so fast that Ezhno almost misses the movement of his lips.

And with these happy words, Ezhno feels his stomach begin to sink with the downward journey of the turbolift.

Quinlan catches sight of his expression, and reaches out to grab Ezhno's shoulder. "It's not as bad as you think!" he says cheerfully, white teeth flashing in the sickly green strip-lights above.

As he pulls the cloak over his head, Ezhno wonders if Obi-Wan's cautious nature is rubbing off on him.

He has a very, _very_ bad feeling about this.

(:~:)

The turbolift stops at level 1102.

Almost four _thousand_ levels beneath the surface.

"This turbolift technically goes deeper," Quinlan says as the doors slide open. "But that might not be a smart thing to do."

Ezhno is out of the turbolift faster than a juvenile stratt being pursued by a duracrete slug.

He steps into a dim world of smoke, neon lights, and sewage.

Ezhno has to fight the urge to cough. The air down here is thick, heady, and foul…as if it has been inhaled and exhaled too many times, millennia after millennia, by a hundred thousand different species.

It occurs to him it probably has.

Quinlan pops into his field of view. "This way," the young Kiffar says.

Ezhno follows after the brown shape of Quinlan's Jedi cloak, and strives to walk as close as possible.

The streets – if they could be called streets, and not strips of duracrete matted so slick with grime that the grain of the floors themselves is invisible – are lit sporadically with strips of yellowish lights that flicker dully in hazes of Spice-smoke. The few people moving between the closely-packed buildings walk quickly, with their heads down. Most of them are covered up so completely it is impossible to tell what species they belong to.

Skin crawling, Ezhno is more than relieved when Quinlan ducks through a darkened archway and keys a code into a decrepit keypad.

The door slides open into a chaotic jumble of lights, consoles, and young sentients of uncountable different species. The _thud-thud-thud_ of synth music trembles up through Ezhno's boots.

A holo-game den.

Blinking, Ezhno allows Quinlan to drag him by the wrist over to an older Togruta, who is sat before a podracing game with a bottle of something that looks suspiciously like bootlegged Kessel spirits by his feet.

Quinlan says something – Ezhno misses this, too preoccupied with staring at the older Togruta's magnificent blue montrals – and nearly misses the orange-skinned hand extended in his direction, too.

Ezhno clasps the hand offered, belatedly.

"Mister Ezhno, aren't you?" the Togruta boy – young man, really – says. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Krayt."

"Krayt?" Ezhno asks. He is quite sure he read that correctly, though the name itself–

"Yeah," Krayt says. "Over there's my lil' sis, Fyrnock. Fyrn for short."

Ezhno turns in the direction Krayt points at and spots a leather-jacketed Togruta girl, perhaps a year or so older than him, dancing so violently to a holo-dance game she looks as though she might punch through the console. The flashing holo-screen says different, though; zero points for style, a hundred for point-accuracy.

Ezhno turns back to Krayt and catches the latter half of his next sentence.

"–might break her own neck."

"Sorry, didn' catch that," Ezhno says, speaking a little louder than usual. Judging by the pulse of bass beats in his sternum, it is needed. "I'm deaf, I needta be lookin' at ye."

"Oh, sorry," Krayt says. "You a friend of Quinlan's, then?"

"Yep."

"Surface kid?" Krayt's eyes hold a sudden glint.

"Yeah," Ezhno says, watching him warily.

"Quinlan tells me you're a slicer. Bet you can't hack like us underdwellers, though."

"Betcha I can," Ezhno retorts. He has not spent half his time at the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children hacking into the school security system for nothing.

"C'mon, then." Krayt jerks his head towards the back room. "Let's see what you can do."

Ezhno looks around for Quinlan, and finds the Kiffar padawan already thoroughly engrossed in a match of Starfighter Smash against a young Twi'lek, gloved hands moving with impressive speed over the mishmash of controls.

Breathing a silent sigh, Ezhno follows Krayt.

(:~:)

Half an hour later, Ezhno has discovered just how much he has yet to know about hacking.

Fortunately, Krayt is also willing to teach. The older Togruta faces Ezhno, leaning over the holoscreen and gesturing at it without ever looking down to actually verify what he is pointing at. But it does not matter. He is always correct.

With Krayt speaking a parsec a minute above a flashing holoscreen, Ezhno is hard-pressed to keep up; but he does, and soon afterwards brings down an entire half-sector's worth of lighting up on the surface.

The only results visible from here, of course, is a swathe of blinking red lights where there had once been green; but Krayt throws his head back and bares fearsome canines in a laugh that Ezhno sees shakes his throat.

"You've got it!" Krayt says, grinning. "That'll be a nice bunch of bigwigs up there without power for a couple hours, now. You've rerouted it so they can't find us?"

"Yeah," Ezhno says, montral-stripes flushed dark gold with success. A niggling thought at the back of his mind is wavering slightly, though, with the morality of this particular endeavour.

Krayt claps him on the back, and leads him back out into the gaming den.

Quinlan is waiting for them, grinning as he pockets a wad of credits.

"Good haul?" Krayt asks.

"Yeah," Quinlan says. "Some people here can't game for a nerf's turd."

"They aren't Jedi," Krayt grins, good-naturedly. "Your man Ezhno here brought down the power of half the Temple sector."

Ezhno blinks up at him. _Did he just say…?_

Quinlan seems to be of similar thought. "What?" he says, lips pulled back from his teeth in disbelief.

Krayt frowns at both their horrified faces. "Oh, yeah, it was the Temple sector. I hadn't managed it before, but with Ezhno's help that worked quite well."

Ezhno stares at Quinlan. Temple policy dictates a count of all its inhabitants in the event of a blackout.

Quinlan's hand suddenly moves towards his belt. The comm hooked there is blinking.

"'Ow's that workin' down 'ere?" Ezhno says, slowly.

"Sithspit," Quinlan begins, staring at it. "Sithspit, _sithspit!_ " He opens his mouth wider with each repetition, biting out the syllables.

For a moment, it is as if Quinlan has shrunk.

And then he straightens, grabs Ezhno's arm, and drags him out of there.

"Wha-?" Ezhno's surprised squawk does not slow Quinlan's pace in the slightest.

Quinlan turns his head to respond, the barest flick of his chin over his shoulder, only enough for Ezhno to read _"Master Tholme, rerouted tracker,"_ before they are running again.

They reach the turbolift without being stopped, and Quinlan has the gate shut and is jabbing the topmost button before Ezhno can even open his mouth.

The turbolift gives an aged shudder as it begins to rise…

And then the boys are thrown to the floor as it drops like a stone.

It takes a moment for Ezhno to realize what has happened, and quite a few more once he has fought to his feet to understand the gravity of it, pun or not.

They are _falling._

_ Deeper. _

"We're gunna die," Ezhno says, to nobody in particular, as the rattle of strained durasteel reveberates up his wrists.

Quinlan throws back his hood, stares at his feet, and clenches his fists.

Ezhno watches him snarl, and then–

The lift shudders to a stop in a terrible wrenching of metal.

Words fly across the cracked holoscreen at the top of the turbolift doorway:

_ Our apologies. This turbolift is out of service. Please exit and find another. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. _

The door slides open to pitch darkness.

Kiffar and Togruta stare out at it, neither moving a muscle.

Quinlan edges over to the level display, blinks at it, and then scrambles back over to Ezhno. His eyes are very wide.

"Level 35," he mouths.

Ezhno has never lip-read anything more terrifying in his life.

Strangely enough, the air filtering into the turbolift is breathable – not ideal, but breathable.

Ezhno stands and grasps Quinlan's shoulder.

"We gotta go find 'nother turbolift," he says, trying to hide how much his hand is shaking.

Quinlan's shoulder doesn't seem all that steady, either. He moves as if to grasp his lightsaber, and then seems to think better of it. Instead, he detaches a small hand-light from his equipment belt.

They step out, carefully.

The turbolift doors close behind them, and – impossibly – the lift begins to rise.

Without them.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me," Ezhno whispers. But there is no choice left to them, now.

Each with a hand grasping the other's sleeve, they move into the darkness.

(:~:)

It is soon apparent that there is no discernable layout to this level; there are passageways, open spaces, unidentifiable debris under their feet, but there are no lights, no living things, and nothing save for the stray drip of water that hits their heads.

It is a maze. And they are lost.

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Ezhno feels panic rear up within him.

Quinlan is the one holding the hand-light; and he has the benefit of sound, while Ezhno does not.

Ezhno is suddenly struck with how horrifying it would be if he were both blind and deaf.

But he forces it out of his mind, and focuses on the limpid pool of lamplight.

The light flickers over something grey-white just ahead, that disappears just as quickly.

Quinlan stops abruptly. His fingers tighten in Ezhno's sleeve.

Ezhno wishes he could say something – but what can he do, when he cannot judge the volume of his own voice, or read Quinlan's reply in as little light as this?

And then Quinlan turns his head and stares behind Ezhno, and opens his mouth in a silent scream. He jerks Ezhno forward.

Something brushes past Ezhno's back, like cold, questing fingers. That same moment, Ezhno becomes aware of a smell – a sweet, sickly scent, like rotting flesh.

Ezhno finds his feet.

They run.

The ground below them comes alive with the pulsing vibrations of dozens of syncopated footfalls, and duller, muted tones. Too many for two boys.

Quinlan drops the handlight and grabs his lightsaber, activating it.

The world around them is suddenly lit in green.

And so are the creatures around them.

Ezhno screams a scream so loud he fancies, for a mad, mad moment, that he can hear it.

Rotting flesh, matted hair, hollowed eye-sockets covered over with tough, pale skin, webbed hands tipped with long nails that cast longer shadows; joints that move paradoxically, stop-motion movements in the writhing shadows cast by the solid green of Quinlan's lightsaber.

Ezhno does not know how his legs keep moving; but they do.

And as he follows Quinlan, chasing not his friend but the lightsaber that is the only point of light in this hell, he remembers a horror story the students of the ZAAGC used to tell, in the dead of night, huddled together under one flickering penlight in the dormitories.

"There are monsters under Coruscant," one of them had said, to the horrified delight of his assembled classmates. "Ossified creatures that once were humans, abandoned there for their crimes. They have no eyes, because the radiation has burnt it away; no tongues, because they drink the filth of generations above. They hunt and eat their prey alive. They are called-"

_ Cthon. _

A white, four-limbed creature drops down in front of them, opening an impossibly large maw that flips itself _inside-out,_ flattening purple gums that bare teeth dripping crimson.

Quinlan hesitates for the merest second, then rushes towards it.

Ezhno forgets to scream. He is beyond that now.

The Cthon snaps its jaws shut a hand-span from Ezhno's nose as Quinlan brandishes his lightsaber and cleaves it in two.

Quinlan's face is visible for the shortest instant, white-eyed, filth-streaked, terrified tears streaming down his golden tattoos as he yells for Ezhno to keep running.

Ezhno obeys. He might be sobbing, now, but he obeys.

Far off in the distance, a point of violet light blossoms into being, with an emerald one beside it.

Quinlan pivots so sharply that Ezhno almost slams into him, and the next moment they are tearing towards the lights, adrenalin lending their terrified feet speed.

A grey-clawed hand reaches over Ezhno's shoulder, and for a slow, slow moment, he glimpses vessels pulse in its skin.

And then it clamps down on his shoulder, and digs sharp-pointed claws into his flesh.

Ezhno finds, in the heartbeat that this happens, that there is a logical solution to this. It is what Obi-Wan might have done.

He turns his head, draws his lips back over the sharp, hunter's canines gifted to him by his ancestry, and tears into the Cthon's hand.

He tastes–

The Cthon releases his shoulder the same time he spits out a mouthful of _something_ , gagging, running both blind and deaf now, with only Quinlan's hand around his wrist guiding him–

And then he is scooped up into a pair of arms, and Quinlan's hand slips off his wrist. Ezhno thrashes for a moment, shrieking, only to freeze in shock when he sees a very _human_ pair of brown eyes, lit in violet light.

Mace Windu spares him a single burning look before hefting him over one shoulder and leaping into the air.

Ezhno notes, with some wonder, that Master Windu's lightsaber is _purple_.

They soar through the darkness, and land with earth-shattering force by a box lit from within–

No. Not a box. A _turbolift_.

Ezhno glimpses a brown Jedi cloak mixed with Quinlan's mussed dreadlocks slip in after them, and then the doors are slammed shut and the turbolift begins to move.

Everything falls still.

The brown cloak in the corner by the lift controls unfolds into a human Jedi master with an impressively scarred eye, and Quinlan tucked under his arm. The other is holding a green lightsaber, which he deactivates and hooks back onto his belt.

Quinlan and Ezhno stare at each other across the artificial white light of the battered turbolift; both crumpled on the filthy floor, held by a Jedi Master.

Ezhno becomes aware he is clutching Mace Windu's arm for dear life. He stares at his orange-skinned hands – grime-streaked, covered in a multitude of tiny cuts – and he cannot bring himself to loosen their grip. It is like they are welded to the Jedi Master's brown sleeve.

There is a warm hand on his shoulder, and he lifts wide eyes up to meet Master Windu's gaze.

Master Windu is saying something, over and over. The shapes to not make sense to Ezhno.

It takes a while, but eventually Ezhno realises the Jedi is saying, "You can let go, Ezhno. You can let go, now."

Mace Windu knows his name.

With this realisation comes the shaking.

The broad thumb pressed to Ezhno's shoulder begins to rub slow circles.

Ezhno unhooks one finger after the other, slowly, and then folds himself into Master Windu's clean tunics.

He is hugging the second-most senior Jedi in the Order.

It doesn't matter.

For a moment, the Jedi does not respond. And then wide cloak sleeves settle over Ezhno's shivering back, and a hand rests in the groove between his montrals.

Ezhno begins to cry.

The turbolift door opens into a back alley, but the air is sweet, and there is a _sky._

Master Windu hefts Ezhno up onto his back, like a child, and two steps later, Ezhno is blinking at the wide boulevard that runs clean and bright all the way up the steps to the–

_ Senate building? _

It is only after the Masters have bundled the boys into an airtaxi and they are on their way that Ezhno realises that they have travelled two districts over, simply by going down almost five thousand levels, and up again, like two bars thrust into a sphere; the tips at the centre almost meet, though the tips at the surface are far apart.

It is with this incredibly logical deduction that Ezhno falls asleep.

When Quinlan has also succumbed to exhaustion, Mace looks at Tholme, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Those two turbolifts couldn't have been more than a hundred metres apart, at that level," Tholme says.

"The one they used to travel down opens up right at the edge of the Temple Plaza."

"The one we came up in opens in front of the Senate building."

The two masters stare at each other, each lost in their own thoughts, but thinking, all the same, of an unorthodox path that links the Temple and the Senate, but is no more than a hundred metres in length.

But who would be so desperate to move quickly between the Senate district and the Temple that they would brave the horrors down below?

For the moment, there are the children, the healers, and a dressing-down that needs to be delivered, about hacking, and illegality, and the _underlevels._

Anything else can wait.


	5. Fern-Potatoes and Caf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set just after chapter 24 of The Silent Song, the first day of Huei Tori's new apprenticeship to Feemor.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Eat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibb5RhoKfzE&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=5)

Feemor Ner'iah prefers to wake at the lovely hour of seven-thirty antemeridian – not so awfully, mind-numbingly early as his former master used to do (take _that_ , Qui-Gon Jinn) but not so late as to truly qualify as laziness. It has been his habit since he reached knighthood, and it is not one he will break simply because he has a new padawan.

The previous evening's helping of stickli-root nerf stew had settled nicely into his stomach, so he had thought nothing of carrying his new, slumbering padawan back to quarters, and tucking the young Nautolan into the previously empty chamber beside his own. And then he had gotten himself a nightcap, because _stars did he need one after a day like that_ _–_ and turned in for the night.

But on this day, Feemor Ner'iah wakes to the scent of fern-potato pancakes.

He stares at the ceiling of his sleeping chamber and frowns for a long moment. He _does_ remember placing fern potatoes in his conservator unit two days ago, but as to why they suddenly seem to have transformed into pancakes, he cannot fathom.

The sweet-spicy smell of well-grilled fern-potatoes lingers as he follows logic to the only obvious conclusion.

Feemor rolls off his sleep-couch and pads out to the short hallway. He halts where the hallway opens into the wider part of the apartment, and stares at the kitchen.

"You made breakfast," Feemor says, slowly.

Huei Tori raises his head sharply, startled. His navy-blue headtresses swing against the leather strap holding them back as he widens his eyes instinctively. His eyelids shudder for a moment, and then lower, flicking once over scarred, silver-white eyes.

Feemor presses his lips together. It is as expected. His new padawan is as of yet still unused to his new sightlessness, and there are …things…they will need to discuss. Especially with the healers–

_Blast. I've forgotten to get that medical report from the healers._

He becomes aware that Huei is grasping the plate of steaming potato-pancakes so hard that the knuckles separating his finger-webs have faded to a lighter blue.

_Oh._

"Fern-potato pancakes?" Feemor says lightly, pulling out a chair with a prominent screech and settling into it.

Some of the tension leaves the Nautolan boy's shoulders. Some. Not much.

"I searched through your conservator unit upon waking at my customary hour," Huei enunciates, clearly. "This was…the only food product I could be reasonably sure I identified correctly, and was not too challenging to cook without…visual input."

Feemor watches him swallow once, painfully.

"Let's sample the fruit of your labours, then," Feemor says, with a hint of dry humour in his voice that he hopes communicates well. He takes the plate carefully, and presses a fork into Huei's hand as he sets the plate down with a deliberate tap of ceramplast against tabletop.

Feemor takes a bite.

And blinks.

"Stars," he mutters. "That's…better than some of the things I've had at diplomatic dinners."

Huei's silver-freckled cheeks flush deeper blue at the words, and the tension drops from his shoulders completely. He feels for the plate-rim with one hand and digs at the edge of a potato-pancake with the fork in the other. "Is the piece secure?"

"Yes."

The Nautolan boy frowns, though, when he samples it.

"Too much Bothan pepper," he murmurs. "Forgive me – the container you have must have larger openings than the one I was used to."

"Huei," Feemor says, suddenly.

"Yes, Master Ner'iah?" Huei replies, immediately. "I mean – Master." The tip of one white tooth appears as he gnaws at his lower lip.

"Call me whatever you like," Feemor says. "Within reason, of course. But that's not the point. The point is _you made breakfast_."

"Was I not supposed to?" Navy brows draw together in a worried frown. "I'm sorry if I–"

"No, that's not it. Just," – Feemor puts down his fork and puts a hand over Huei's wrist – "you _made breakfast_."

"Yes." Huei is losing that expression of contrite worry now, and one that reads _are-you-fully-sane_ is slowly beginning to replace it.

"You made breakfast without any visual input at all," the older Jedi emphasises. "In an apartment you are unfamiliar with, with ingredients you could not be sure of, and without any aid whatsoever."

"You have a press-grill with an automatic timer," Huei protests, wrist twitching in Feemor's grasp. "I identified the other simple ingredients I needed by scent and taste. I know how to use a knife well enough not to need to see it."

"You're actually trying to make excuses for your incredible ability to adapt," Feemor says incredulously, staring at his new padawan.

Huei's head-tresses flicker sharply at the praise. "I don't understand."

"What don't you don't understand?"

"My performance is unsatisfactory."

_"_ _How so?"_ Feemor gapes.

"The pancakes were imperfectly seasoned. I misjudged the time you would awake. I am unsure as to the extent of the mess, but I believe I may have spilt some Rikknit eggs during their preparation."

Feemor stares at him for a long moment. He can already feel the beginnings of a headache start up behind his eyes.

"Right," Feemor says quietly, letting go of Huei's wrist to rub at his own unshaved chin. "I need caf."

"If you tell me where you keep it I'm sure I can–"

"No. _You're_ sitting down. I'm getting my own caf. You want a cup?"

"I–" Huei pauses. "Yes. Please."

"Okay, I'm going to lead you to the sofa. There's a low table at your knee level about a half-metre in front of it, so mind your shins."

"Thank you."

Huei is very quiet and very composed as he is guided to the sofa and told to sit. This he follows to the syllable, back straight, hands folded in his lap, sightless eyes boring a hole into the opposite wall.

Feemor takes note of this and resists the urge to throw his hands into the air. The rustle of fabric might be a giveaway.

He makes as much noise as possible as he brews up two cups of caf, to cover up the mutterings under his breath.

"Here," Feemor says as he slides a cup of caf with a saucer into Huei's hands. "Be careful. It's hot."

"Thank you, Master," Huei intones.

Feemor settles into the sofa opposite and places his own caf onto the coffee table. He urge to lean back and massage his temples is overwhelming, but he resists the temptation with aplomb.

"Let's go over this step-by-step," he begins, once Huei has taken a cautious sip of caf and has felt for the table to put down the saucer. "Firstly: what made you think you needed to make breakfast in the first place?"

Huei's eyelids flutter. "It is part of my daily duties."

"As Master Dooku's padawan?"

"Yes."

"What did these daily duties comprise of?"

"I would wake an hour before Master Dooku did, to make breakfast. After the meal I would clean up, then go to classes. When classes finished for the day I would then return and clean the apartment. Then I would cook supper. After supper was done, we would eat and I would wash up afterwards. The remainder of the evening was left empty for my assignments. The only variation to this would be if something required repairing. Then I would do so, before turning to my own studies."

Feemor feels something heavy and slimy slither into his chest. "Master Dooku never undertook any of these tasks himself?"

Huei's lips open slightly in suprise. "No. These are the required duties of a padawan."

Feemor opens his mouth and closes it again.

"Master?" Huei ventures, as the silence lengthens.

"No."

"What?"

_"_ _No,"_ Feemor says, vehemently. "Those are most definitely _not_ the required duties of a padawan."

"Oh." Huei relaxes a little out of his ramrod-straight posture. "How so?"

Feemor takes another long gulp of caf. "I'm going to need a moment."

"Of course, Master."

"Just…stars. Stars and galaxies. _Sith-spawned Kessel death-pits_. He might be my grandmaster, but this…"

"…Master?"

Feemor puts down his cup with a _thunk._ "Right. Forget what Master Dooku said to you about a padawan's duties. Between you and me, that's a load of bantha turd."

"Bantha…turd?" Huei's lips form incompletely around the word, like the phrase is unnatural to him.

"I used nicer words this time."

"Oh."

"Okay, let's lay down some ground rules about this apprenticeship."

"Yes, Master," Huei says, straightening his back automatically.

Feemor catches the movement and suppresses a sigh. "Firstly, you're not obligated to make me breakfast every day. I appreciate the effort, and you've all the makings of a galactic-level cook, apparently, but I shouldn't require that of you. It wouldn't be right. Nor would making you solely responsible for the maintenance of this apartment."

"Why?" Huei inquires.

"Because it's supposed to be the _other way round!"_ Feemor exclaims. He winces, though, when he senses the other boy twitch in the Force. Their bond is not yet fully formed, but the beginnings of it stretch between them, like juvenile vines weaving their futures together.

Feemor takes a moment to compose himself. "My apologies. Allow me to explain. I am your master now, and you are my student. As such, I am responsible for your training, welfare, and general wellbeing. Filling the hours of your day with tasks that I am perfectly able to share in and taking time away from your personal enjoyment or pursuit of your studies would be unforgivable on my part."

"Personal enjoyment," Huei states, blankly.

"Yes. What are your hobbies?"

"Hobbies?"

"Oh, don't tell me. You didn't have time for anything else except classes, chores, and studying."

"Is that not how it is supposed to be?"

"No."

"Then I suppose I enjoyed cooking, for what it was. I was alone, undisturbed, and able to create something for my master and I to share." At the mention of _my master_ , Huei's Force-presence contracts in upon itself.

"Fine. I won't take that away from you," Feemor says, reaching for his caf again. He wishes now that he had made it double-strength. "Let's alternate cooking and cleaning. I'll draw up a schedule for us in raised Aurebesh. Which reminds me, we need to go get you sorted on learning that."

"Yes, Master."

"Also, as nice as that sounds, you don't have to respond to every word I say with that phrase."

"Yes, M– oh." Huei falters for a moment, and then the edges of his lips curve upwards, ever so slightly. And then: "Master?"

"Yes, my Padawan?"

Huei's Force-signature blossoms a little at the title. "What will we do today?"

Feemor glances at his chrono and lets loose a yelp that nearly has Huei upsetting his cup of caf.

"We're going to be late for the healers," Feemor groans.

"Oh." A slow smile spreads over Huei's cheeks. "Then we had better hurry. I shall wash up–"

Feemor flings out a hand to stop him, only pulling back at the last moment, when he realises that will not work. "Hold it right there. I'm doing it. You go get dressed."

"Very well." Huei feels for the edge of the table before him before standing up.

"Wait," Feemor says as the young Nautolan takes a measured step towards the wall, webbed hand outstretched.

Huei tilts the side of his head towards him, listening as the Jedi Master sprints into a room and back out again.

"I'm going to have to push aside your head-tresses," Feemor warns.

Huei feels warm fingers brush clear a space to his scalp, and something click into place at his right temple, between two head-tresses. A lovely, familiar feel of silka-beads weighing down the leather strap on that side of his head.

His padawan braid.

He raises a trembling hand to feel it slide over his fingers.

"I've added the appropriate bead to the end," Feemor says, an edge of something in his voice. _Pride?_ " _Two_ beads, actually."

"Two?" Huei asks, confused.

"One for the change of masters. Another for a trial of the flesh and mind combined. But if I could, I would add another. For sheer verve."

Huei knows he shouldn't be smiling as widely as he is right now. He ducks his head in embarrassment.

A hand falls on his shoulder, and grasps it securely, grounding him in the Force.

"I'm looking forward to many long years learning from each other, my young padawan," Feemor says.

Huei senses the Force swell between them, tendrils of light curling and strengthening into a tangible bridge. The light swells, and brightens, and washes away the beginnings of a Shadow, of a path that once led only to the Sentinels, and did not fork.

His road is not visible, nor straight, now. There is a bend in the path.

But in his mind there is light.

A bond.

"So am I, Master," he murmurs, as the last of the Huei Tori, the young Sentinel, washes away.


	6. An Old and a New Blade (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set between chapters 24 and 25 of The Silent Song, a few days after the previous chapter of Silent Measures.
> 
> Huei finds new ways to fight.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Dear Theodosia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g07s1qTP6Rs&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=6)

All in all, Feemor Ner'iah muses, it is very fortunate that the Jedi Order trains all their initiates in blindfolded lightsaber forms.

Watching his padawan – his new, _recently-blinded_ padawan, no less – run through every Shii-Cho form from basic to advanced with picture-perfect execution is quite something, at least.

Huei rotates out of his last flip with a muted rustle of tabards and tunics, reversing the sapphire lightsaber in his hand and chambering it behind his arm as he comes to a halt precisely at the spot where he started from, four minutes previous. His chest is heaving, and sweat drips off the ends of his head-tails and clings to the silka-beads of his padawan-braid, but his lips hold the hint of a smile.

Leaning against the wall beside Feemor, Kit Fisto lets loose a low whistle. "Master Dooku really doesn't pick them for anything other than raw talent, does he?" he murmurs, softly.

"You're the resident Shii-Cho specialist at the moment," Feemor whispers back. "Thoughts?"

Kit's trademark white-toothed grin makes an appearance. "He's blasted good, if that's what you're asking."

"Wonderful," Feemor says, smiling. "Huei, that's good enough for now!" he calls. "Come over here and take a break. We'll move on to Makashi next."

"Yes, Master!" comes the response.

"It's only been two days, but you seem to be doing fine with the new training bond," Kit says softly as Huei begins to trot towards them, obviously using Feemor's Force-signature as a reference point.

"It involved breakfast, caf, and a headache the size of Coruscant Prime," Feemor mutters wryly. "At least on my part." He closes his mouth before Huei comes within audible range. Kit's snort, on the other hand, reaches the younger Nautolan.

Huei turns a questioning chin towards the source of the noise, but makes no comment.

"Here," Feemor says, pressing a towel into his padawan's hands. "I don't think you need more work in Shii-Cho for the moment. That was very impressive, padawan."

"Thank you, Master," Huei murmurs in reply. His dark blue cheeks are flushed navy from the exertion, but they deepen further at the compliment. Shy pleasure radiates over his shields.

"We'll see about sparring after you're done with the Makashi forms," Kit interjects. "That should present another set of challenges."

"Yes, Master Fisto."

"And call me Kit. I'm barely a decade older than you."

Huei eyelids flick once over his scarred eyes. Feemor is sure that if Huei had eyebrows, they would be raised.

"Drink," Feemor snorts, nudging a canteen of water at Huei's forearm. "Ignore Knight _I'm-very-young_ here."

Kit turns toward him. "Did you say something, Master _greying-hair_?"

"Is your hair greying?" Huei asks suddenly, with interest.

"No, it is most certainly not," Feemor replies, sharply. "My hair is gold, and it will stay that way."

"Hm." Huei tilts his head, Force-signature flaring slightly as he probes along their bond. "You're lying," he says, after a moment, smiling slowly.

"It's one lock," Feemor says, as Kit chortles beside him. "Hardly counts."

"If you say so, Master."

"Insolence isn't to be tolerated," Feemor says, mock-sternly.

Huei seems to shrink in the Force.

Feemor realises his mistake a step too late. "Though I wager I could tolerate it in small amounts," he amends, making sure to drop his shields enough for Huei to sense his comfortable amusement.

It takes a moment, but Huei's shoulders relax, and his slim fingers unclench from around the towel.

The silence is still somewhat awkward.

"What level have you reached in Makashi?" Kit inquires, breaking the silence.

"I'm halfway through the third," Huei replies. His voice is quite calm. "Though I have yet to practice those above level two blindfolded."

"As much as you can, then," Feemor says. "And keep that lightsaber on its lowest setting."

With a nod and a short bow, Huei trots off again.

"Step a bit more to your left – yes, that's right, stop there and start – _I don't think katas are necessarily the problem,_ " Feemor lowers his voice, as Huei flourishes his lightsaber in a textbook-perfect Makashi salute. "I can send him images through the bond just fine. Should be enough to learn new ones without issue."

"The problem is actual combat, you mean," Kit says, equally softly.

"Yes. Action requires a reaction, which in turn inquires observation."

"Difficult."

"Yes." Feemor frowns, contemplatively. "We'll need to think of something."

Huei, for the moment, is moving with such grace and silken power that the observers are hard-pressed not to imagine him with the dark, flowing cloak and silver hair of his former master. If Huei's bladework was clean in Shii-Cho, in Makashi he is devastatingly precise; his feet slide with soundless elegance over the salle floor, and his wrist sends his 'saber in perfect half-moons of effortless strength.

As Huei progresses further up the levels, though, to forms less well-practised, his wrist begins to lose its perfect angulation. Twice Feemor nearly calls a halt to proceedings when Huei's blade seems to slip too close to an arm or a knee – but something makes him hold his tongue, and he watches as Huei divides the training hall into clear-cut lines of blue light.

 _Yes,_ Feemor realises. This cannot be called perfect, but it is worth it so see his padawan struggle with such determination.

Eventually Huei's wrist tilts just a degree further than before – an infinitesimal change in an otherwise passable performance that brings the scalding edge of his lightsaber blade too close to his opposite arm.

Feemor and Kit straighten at the abrupt hiss of pain, and the sharp snap of the deactivating 'saber that follows.

"Huei?" Feemor calls apprehensively, jogging over to where his padawan is knelt on the hardwood floor, one hand pressed to a slim forearm.

"I may have mistaken my lightsaber setting for lower than what it truly was," Huei murmurs as Feemor's hurried footsteps approach. "I shall need to redesign the hilt to accommodate a more tactile setting display."

"Less about the cause of the injury, more about the injury itself," Feemor admonishes as he reaches for the blue-skinned arm with gentle fingers, softly tugging away Huei's other hand.

There is a discoloured patch on the inside of Huei's forearm, where plasma has brushed too close and blistered the skin.

"This needs bacta," Feemor notes. "I should have noticed the 'saber settings were off simply by the sound. I'm sorry, Huei."

"I'll clean up here and join you later," Kit says.

Huei nods, but jerks in surprise when Feemor pulls him to his feet with a hand under his other elbow and begins to walk with him.

"Where are we going?" Huei asks, bewildered, as he matches pace with Feemor.

Feemor's Force-signature turns towards him in the Force, and Huei senses a flash of utter confusion from his master's end of the bond.

"The Healers." Feemor's voice holds an odd note.

"Now?" Huei asks.

"Of course."

"But I haven't finished the set of forms," Huei protests.

Feemor stops so abruptly that Huei would have bashed into him had a calloused hand not fallen gently around his shoulders, preventing him from tipping forward.

"Master?" Huei ventures.

"Wait a moment, if you will, Huei," Feemor says, a completely foreign tone in his words. It is almost…hard. "I'm trying to decide whether I want to hear this."

"Oh."

A moment, and then his master begins to walk again.

"The burn is on my non-dominant arm," Huei begins. "Makashi is a single-handed form. I could easily have waited–"

"My apologies, padawan," Feemor breaks in suddenly, interrupting him. "I think I've heard enough. No fault of yours, understand."

"Yes, Master," Huei replies, though he does not understand at all. Belatedly, he realises his master's shields have thickened considerably in the last few seconds. He cannot imagine why.

This conundrum quite occupies him until they reach the healers' wing, where the burn on his forearm is treated with great care. What sounds like a mountain of bacta strips, judging by the rustle, are handed over to his master. Kit makes a good-natured jibe at this when he arrives and is rewarded with a sharp word-lashing in return from Feemor.

Huei feels the surface of the bacta bandage around his forearm with curiosity. It somehow feels rough and smooth at the same time.

"Huei."

He nearly jumps, startled. Feemor's presence, so unusually veiled in the Force, is right beside him.

A hand on his shoulder. "Let's go home, padawan."

The word shudders at Huei's thoughts for a moment.

Not quarters, or rooms, or residence, even. _Home._

_Oh._

Feemor makes to let go of his shoulder once they are out of the main bustle of the healers' wing itself, but Huei shifts a little back into the calloused palm, and his master takes the hint.

The warm hand on Huei's left tabard is enough to banish all doubts about his possible difficulty in continued 'saberwork from his mind, all the way back to quarters.

Back home.


	7. An Old and a New Blade (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this chapter: [Run Free](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IoTV4bvIzw&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=7)

"Left!" Feemor shouts.

Huei bares his teeth in a growl.

In the space of an instant, Huei has reversed his grip on his lightsaber hilt and brought the howling blade up towards his master's – but there is no dischordant clash of lightsabers against each other, and only emptiness.

And the steady hum of a lighstaber blade at his throat.

"And that's a point to Master Ner'iah," Kit calls from the sidelines, with a barely-stifled sigh, "again."

The blade at Huei's throat is withdrawn with a sharp, deactivating snap.

"This isn't going to work," Feemor mutters, from somewhere above the level of Huei's head.

Huei remains silent, and deactivates his lightsaber with what he knows to be a perfect flourish – but what use is that when he can no longer see his opponent's blade in combat?

A hand finds his shoulder. "Take a break," Feemor says, quite calmly. "We'll figure this out. And give yourself some slack – I've something like thirty years' experience on you. I doubt that you could have done anything about it, even with the aid of sight."

"Yes, Master," Huei murmurs. Despite his best efforts, he cannot prevent the frustration that edges his voice.

Their training bond flares into a glow that suffuses his mind with warmth.

"Meditate," Feemor says to him, before his footsteps move away.

Huei stands there blankly for a moment. He is well aware he has been given the mental equivalent of an affectionate pat on the head, but he cannot decide whether he should smile or scowl about it.

It is not as if he has experienced the like, before.

Over to his right, Kit's Force-signature glimmers with amusement, before spiking slightly. Judging by the _thud_ and sharp _"Hey!"_ that follows, Feemor has given him a friendly punch in retaliation.

Huei folds himself down to the hardwood floor of the training hall, and closes his eyes to meditate. He does not necessarily need to, now, but he does so out of habit.

"Ideas?" Feemor murmurs to Kit, once Huei's Force-signature has smoothened out into the still pool of meditation.

"None yet," Kit grimaces. "I'm sure we'll think of something."

"Hm."

They wait in contemplative silence until Huei surfaces from the eddying currents of the Force and rises to his feet, trotting over to them. There is no trace of his previous frustration on his sweat-slicked face, now.

"Good," Feemor says warmly, as Kit nudges Huei's elbow with a canteen.

Huei feels for the canteen absently. Kit turns to speak to Feemor, and releases it a moment too soon; Huei's fingers have barely touched the metal surface before gravity takes hold and the canteen begins to slip towards the ground.

Huei's fingers slide forward in a quick flicker of motion and in an eyeblink, the canteen is secure in his grasp. He raises it to his lips without comment, as Kit pats him on the shoulder in apology and continues to speak.

"Wait," Feemor interrupts, eyes fixed on the canteen in his padawan's fingers. "Huei, what just happened?"

"Hm?" Huei responds, around a mouthful of water.

"Indulge me for a moment," Feemor says, taking the canteen from Huei and screwing on the cap. "I have an idea."

"Oh, good," Kit says. "I thought you might have had an apoplectic fit for a moment. Your eyes are twice as big as they were before."

It is a testament to Feemor's excitement that he does not respond to this jibe, and instead nudges the canteen against his padawan's elbow again, in mimicry of Kit's actions moments earlier.

Huei is wearing an expression that Feemor has begun to label _the-face-I-wear-when-people-are-being-idiots-but-they-outrank-me-so-I-can't-comment,_ but the young Nautolan humors his master and feels for the canteen with his opposite hand.

Feemor deliberately loosens his hold just as Huei's fingertips brush the pitted surface of the canteen.

And once again, Huei's wrist tilts with smooth efficiency to grasp the canteen before it slips more than a few centimeters towards their feet.

Feemor crows victory towards the ceiling, so loudly that the chamber echoes with it.

Startled, Huei drops the canteen. The cap comes loose as it hits the floor with a _thunk_ , and splashes cold water over all their boots.

Kit leaps back, hissing in surprise.

"Padawan!" Feemor shouts, delighted.

"What?" Huei says, nonplussed, as Feemor grabs him around the shoulders. "What is it, Master?"

"I've got it!"

"Lost it, more like," Kit mutters, aside.

"Kit!" Feemor makes a grab for him, which Kit avoids with something that looks suspiciously like Soresu footwork. Feemor is too estatic to care.

"Master?" Huei says, doubtfully. "Are you quite all right?"

"I'm a fool with bantha turds for brains," Feemor jabbers, grabbing Huei's arm and dragging him towards the centre of the training room again. "I know how to solve the problem."

"That is a somewhat contradictory statement," Huei comments, as he is told to stand at a particular spot.

"Thank me later," Feemor shushes, aware that a delirious grin is beginning to grow on his face. He sprints over to a weapons rack on the wall and snatches up two long wooden dowels, and a shorter one about two-thirds the length of the previous.

Huei's face, when he returns, is faintly amused and tolerant in equal parts.

"Here," Feemor says, pressing a long dowel into Huei's sword-hand, and the shorter one into the other, reversed in a shoto grip. "Hold these."

"Yes, Master." Huei intones, testing their weight. "A shoto?"

"Yes," Feemor replies, swinging his own long dowel experimentally. "But not just _any_ shoto."

"Indeed," Huei says, face studiously blank, even as his Force-signature flickers with humour.

"You won't be laughing for anything other than joy after this," Feemor retorts. "Now, blades up. I'm aware you don't have much experience in Jar'Kai, but do the best you can. Kit?" he calls, the last part directed towards the watching Knight.

"Right," Kit answers, from the side. He appears just as confused as Huei seems to be, but he calls the start of the match as he is supposed to.

Feemor sends his dowel in a lazy curve towards Huei's left shoulder. Huei's dominant arm twitches, but then the Force glimmers and he raises his secondary weapon to meet Feemor's strike, head tilted to listen for the prompting of the Force. It almost seems painfully slow for a moment, but the two dowels meet with a sharp _clack_ of striking wood.

Feemor tilts his wrist, as if to withdraw, and feels the pressure against his fingers decrease as Huei prepares to draw back his own weapon, as any Jar'Kai user would in disengaging a block. It is one of the first lessons taught to the younglings in their lightsaber lessons; strike and block quickly, and withdraw with equal or faster speed, to allow for adaptation to the opponent's next move, or a strike of your own. Any overextension of a block leaves one vulnerable.

What Feemor is about to suggest completely contradicts all of the above.

But that is exactly the point.

"No!" he shouts. "Keep your shoto on my blade!"

Huei nearly falters in surprise, and the dowel in his left hand slips and judders against Feemor's as he reverses his previous motion, but he follows through and keeps the short length of wood pressed against Feemor's longer rod.

Feemor moves back, as though to slide his weapon away and disengage, and Huei follows, shoto rotating around Feemor's makeshift blade but never leaving it.

"Keep going!" Feemor says, looping his dowel over and around Huei's to get inside his block.

Huei takes a hurried step back, shoto sliding along the longer dowel, and ducks under his master's weapon as it pushes towards his head.

Off to the side, Kit makes a noise of startled understanding.

The knot of concentration in Feemor's chest blossoms into a bright nebula of wild hope.

Huei senses it, and opens his mouth to speak, but then Feemor presses his advantage and he is forced to pivot aside, arm perpendicular to his master's as he brings up his right hand, longer primary weapon scything towards Feemor's head.

And then Feemor shouts, "Halt!" and Huei freezes in place, his right arm outstretched, his left still holding the shoto to Feemor's blade.

"Huei," Feemor says, quietly.

Over the sound of his own breathing, Huei pinpoints where Feemor's voice is coming from.

He nearly drops his right dowel. The length of wood hits something as it dips; Feemor grunts.

_Feemor's shoulder._

Huei's mouth drops open. His primary weapon, apparently, had been an inch from knocking out his master's brains.

Which begs the question, of course – how did he know where his master's head even was?

And how did he know where to duck under the strike, earlier?

There is a gentle tap of wood against wood as Feemor withdraws his own dowel, and Huei _understands._

He understands with such a starburst of radiant clarity that for a moment, he almost believes he can see his master's bright grin in front of him.

Huei had known hope to be this beautiful, before – when Feemor had asked him to be his padawan, for example – but this is electric, otherworldly, like a sphere of liquid light shattering over his head and racing down his spine.

"The shoto," he says, voice hoarse.

Calloused fingers close around his left hand and the short piece of wood clenched there.

"Yes," Feemor says. "By keeping your shoto pressed lightly against my weapon at all times, you knew where my blade was pointed, and what my next motion would be. With more practice, you will be able to guide my blows away from your person, and reserve your dominant hand for strikes."

Huei drops both rods. They clatter to the floor by his feet, but he does not bend to retrieve them.

"Like so," Feemor says, casting his own dowel aside with a loud clang and lifting up Huei's left hand to chest level, palm up. He presses the side of his own left wrist against Huei's, hard ulnar ridges against each other. "Try to stop me from touching you," he says. "But do not counter force with force. Give, but guide."

"Yes, Master," Huei murmurs automatically, mind reeling.

"Very well. Go."

Huei feels Feemor push gently against the outside of his wrist as the Jedi master reaches towards his chest, so he swivels his arm on instinct and guides his master's wrist away, altering the course of the push degree by degree until Feemor's hand halts, arm fully extended, by Huei's side.

Their wrists are still touching, though Huei's forearm has rotated to face the ground, and his palm rests lightly against the back of Feemor's wrist, as though to grasp it.

Feemor is radiating such affected pride that Huei feels as though the bond might burst.

"Yes," Feemor says. "Exactly like that. Train enough, and eventually, you'll be able to sense where an opponent is simply through the direction and force of the blade against yours. You can use it to draw them into overreaching their attacks. You can misdirect them, trap them, disarm them, and hold them – and all the while, your blade against theirs in an unbroken block. It is a shield and a scout all at once, and with enough practice, a weapon, too."

Huei cannot see Feemor's face, but knows he is smiling, nonetheless.

Something is building inside Huei's chest. He has never, in all his life, felt an emotion as strong as this; it is like a galvanising current that dances at his fingertips.

It is the thrill of knowing that this is a vast, unexplored world of pure, Force-born possibility, and that he will come out of it not only better than before, but attuned to his blades like the Force itself.

_The Jedi is the crystal of the Force._

Huei steps forward, hand outstretched, and when his fingertips come into contact with the rough cotton of a Jedi tabard, he throws himself at it.

Feemor makes a muffled noise as Huei's face collides with his chest, but then lean arms wind around his middle and Feemor lets out a laugh as he returns the hug, settling a hand on Huei's head and another around wiry shoulders.

"We'll have to see about designing a new shoto," Feemor murmurs down at the mop of dark blue head-tresses. "And I think a trip to Ilum is in order."

Silence.

Huei, for all his usual impeccable Jedi reserve, does not seem to want to let go any time soon.

Kit is making indescribable noises in his corner. Feemor glances over at him, to confirm that he has not whipped out a holorecorder. He wouldn't put it past Kit to do so.

Huei mumbles something unintelligible into his master's tabards.

"You're very welcome, my young padawan," Feemor replies, smiling.


	8. Six Hundred Bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The same AU-of-an-AU as Chapter 2: Silent Laughter. Order 66 in a possible TSS universe. Non-compliant with the main story of The Silent Song.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Melted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_VmQF_VU4I&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=8)

If Obi-Wan could throw back his head and shout with joy, he would do so now.

Grievous is dead, and the end of the war is so close he can very nearly see it, through this thin veil of grey that had descended on the Force since the beginning of the conflict. It is there; he can almost reach out and touch the luminescent world on the other side – pure, untainted, like the light-drenched days of his early apprenticeship to Qui-Gon, before Ventrux, before the Cruorven, before the Sith rose and cleaved the galaxy in two.

As such, he sports a very wide grin indeed as Boga leaps back towards the thick of the battle proper. As he draws closer to the bulk of the 212th, he lets his elation spill up over his shields and along the close-to six hundred mental bridges that connect him to his men.

He projects the image of his final blaster-shot meeting Grievous's slimy insides, just to hit home the point.

A palpable roar rises up among his men, audible even over the screams of blasterfire. The tide of orange-yellow-painted troopers rears up and clashes against the Separatist forces anew, a plastoid-armoured wave of drunken victory, curled on the wind of their general's success.

Though perhaps it is Obi-Wan who is a little punch-drunk on victory, and not his troopers.

But Boga's echoing varactyl calls are certainly triumphant enough as she slews to a stop next to Cody, who grins up at Obi-Wan, all white teeth and battle-fervor, scar crinkling at the edge of his left eye.

Cody clasps his right gauntlet over his open left and raises them in a quick congratulations before detaching a familiar silver hilt from his belt and holding it towards his smiling general.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan signs back, inclining his head with the second half of the movement to show more than thanks, but respect for a trusted second. "Let's win this battle and join up with General Skywalker on Coruscant," he adds, taking the lightsaber with a grin.

"Yes, sir!" Cody says, snapping into a jaunty salute. Two years ago he might have been too much of a stickler for regulations to do so, but now he simply returns Obi-Wan's smile and jams his helmet back on his head.

Obi-Wan spies a spot on a higher level where his men are spread too thin, and flicks the reins, guiding Boga towards the cliffside as he activates his lightsaber. The comforting weight of the blue blade in his sword-hand does marvelous things to add to his happiness; there had been relief after Grievous was gone, but now, with his lightsaber in his hand again, and his men turning the tide of this battle in their favour, he is once more complete.

For a moment, the stone flute in his sleeve warms with the Force.

And then warmth leeches out of the flute the same time the river-stone tucked next to his chest flares in warning – it is like ice stabs him in the arm and in the heart at once, and he flings a glance over his shoulder back around the circular cliff to where his First is, to warn him–

But Cody is speaking to small hologrammed figure on a comm-disk, and as he speaks, it is like the Force recoils away from him, snapping back along a bond three years strong to whip Obi-Wan across the face.

Obi-Wan reels in place, in that one moment; frozen in denial too strong to do anything but watch, and _feel._

Feel. As one moment becomes a hundred, and he is a prison in his own body, locked to his consciousness as one is incarcerated in a nightmare.

Through those last few threads connecting them, which are even now beginning to fray and wither away – Cody is screaming.

Cody is _screaming._

Obi-Wan knows, with a detached sort of clarity that only the Force provides in moments of extreme shock, that Cody is not screaming _physically._

And then almost six hundred bonds _twist,_ all at once, men shrieking agony and denial, and fighting uselessly in minds conditioned to be ordered and not _shielded,_ and how do you shield from something that awakens like a puppetmaster in your own mind and spears claws into your brain that whisper _goodsoldiersfolloworders goodsoldiersfolloworders_ _NO THAT IS NOT ME_ _help me sir please help me I don't want to do this sir you're our General kill me please kill me KILL US KILL US-_

_Kill us._

Obi-Wan feels the beginnings of tears start up behind his eyelids – he is unaware of when he closed his eyes – as the last of the bonds snap away, leaving his mind raw, bleeding, a parent with his children ripped away from his side.

His mindscape falls silent.

And he hears the shriek of the plasma-cannon-shot lancing towards him.

_Oh, Cody._

_I forgive you._

A flash of unbelievable heat, a handspan in front of his face. He wonders if it will blind him, and render him like his friend, Huei Tori, but without even speech.

Boga screams.

He feels rather than sees her scrabble for the crumbling walls. Obi-Wan blinks the sable spots out of his vision, languidly, as he watches time flow past, millisecond by Force-slowed millisecond – gravel scoring bloody furrows in his hands, Boga twisting around, torturously slowly in mid-air, to shield him from the next blast–

And then she dies too, and he realises that the silence in his mind when his men left him, what must be barely two seconds ago in real-time – that was not silence at all, but simply a quietening.

 _This_ is silence.

He hits the lake below the sinkhole, and the world is for an instant all white foam, and cool, cool water.

No more fire.

That is good.

He imagines, in the eyeblink until the bubbles dissipate, that he is lost in the Force back in his favourite garden in the Temple, in the cool shade of a Muja tree tall and strong, with a blue-skinned Nautolan Jedi by one shoulder, and the gold-striped montrals of a laughing Togruta by the other.

And then his lungs begin to burn, and he releases the breath in a laugh, though he knows it is more a sob. His breath becomes bubbles – a visible laugh at last, though inaudible, in the lancing bars of sunlight that pierce the water around him.

He cannot be the only one, falling like thus.

_Huei. Anakin._

_Ahsoka._

Obi-Wan unfolds his rebreather, and places it in his mouth.

He breathes in the galaxy.

The Force cradles him, and fills the silence with a song. The glowlamps of his mind flicker to life, star-studded pebbles in a singing brook.

He clips his lightsaber at his belt, flips over on a current, and begins to swim towards the source of the song.


	9. Ezhno of Shili

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ezhno, before Ventrux.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Wow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3AwWvyyDS4&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=9)

The Togruta child is born one heady summer evening, when the six moons of Shili are strung across the sky like waxing and waning pearls.

The village head visits the family, marking the forehead of the young, squalling baby with the mark of a newborn, a fresher white marking against the blurred, undefined white shapes on the child's cheeks. Those white shapes will later grow sharp and elegant on cheekbones lean with the ancestry of hunting Togruta; but at present they are largely ignored, for the whisper goes around the surrounding villages, sweeping through the tall turu-grasses like a wind-fed fire:

_ A child with golden head-stripes! _

It is unheard of; while dark blue is the most prominent colour of montral stripes, with occasional earthy purples and browns heard of here and there, gold is a treasure so rare that even the legends do not speak of it.

The Togruta child is cleaned, and swaddled in warm plant-fibre cloth, with great care. He is named on his third day with great ceremony, shushed and held when he cries at the unfamiliar touch, and held before the gathered village so that the clear honey-gold stripes on his stubby lekku and montrals shine brilliantly in the setting sun.

So for a few, bright months, the child is given only the best.

The best clothing, with turu-grass in intricate red-white patterns lacing over the edges; the best food, once he is old enough to tolerate mush. The best wood to gnaw on from the forest valleys half a world away, once he begins to teeth at four months – a little early, they all say, but quite normal for what will likely be a strong Togruta male in the future. _He's getting ahead of himself,_ they laugh. He does not respond much when they call his name, but that causes no worry. He is young, after all.

And then comes the day, very soon after, when his father carves a rattle for him, and shakes it behind the child's head to surprise him.

And the child does not turn his head.

His father shakes the rattle harder. It is shaped like an Akul; painted the dusky orange of its camouflaged fur, that one day this child will hunt, and take the teeth of the Akul for himself to make a warrior-necklace in a test of bravery and skill.

The child giggles to himself, and continues scratching drawings in the earth of his playpen. He has learnt to sit barely a week ago, and is very much enjoying the new point of view.

The rattle drops to the floor.

The child does not hear it.

(:~:)

They rename him soon after.

He learns to walk by his eleventh month, not because he is particularly gifted, but because crawling is all well and good but food is often not as plenty at this point and standing allows him to reach further up the shelves.

They say that his name suits him. There is no need to whisper now.

At eighteen months, when the child has learnt to run in his dirty, too-small clothes, stumbling a little because of his lack of echolocation, they send him away.

The government of Shili do with him what they do for most abandoned children they receive. They put him in a planetary-government-run orphanage, where the staff teach him how to say his name.

_ Ez-no _ . Ezhno.

He who walks alone.

Ezhno discovers a new world he had not understood before, and decides he will learn as much of it as he can.

They send him to school on Shili, where he is taught to lip-read, though speaking is taught much less, and he learns by experimentation through a datapad program more than anything else; he has no friends to speak with. Eventually the program gives him a pronunciation score of seventy percent accuracy.

He reckons seventy percent is good enough.

He finds a love for datapads and holo-consoles. They are easier to communicate with than his teachers, at least. The holonet is a better teacher than they are, and learning to slice into networks is _fun._

And then at the age of eleven he is expelled, because he hacked into the school security systems.

Upon reflection, it _had_ been rather stupid of him. If he did go into as much trouble as hacking into the school security systems, he should at least have planned to do something.

Ezhno stays in a centre for older children for a year or two, while the government decides what to do with him. No family has offered fostering or adoption. The staff at his new school watches him with the distrust of hunting rock-vultures. He barely learns a thing there; they have even fewer measures for the hearing-impaired than his previous school did.

And then when Ezhno is thirteen, the opportunity comes.

A new institution opens on Ventrux; the Zan Arbor Academy for Gifted Children. A school that prides itself on its acceptance and support of disabled students, its public relations team says. Funded with the generosity of the Zan Arbor Research Foundation.

The government of Shili is allotted three places.

And Ezhno is chosen.

To this day, he has no idea why.

He only knows that he is put on a transport to Ventrux with a social worker who looks seven parts annoyed and three parts frustrated. He is dropped off like baggage at a building that looks more like frozen fluid than solid material, and is given a smart grey uniform and told to be careful with it. He will not be given another unless he outgrows it.

And then he is put into a dorm room alone, and that is that.

Ezhno remains there for two and a half years.

He learns, to be sure. The ZAAGC take the education of their children seriously. Ezhno may be a bit older than the other children in his year, but he tries his best, though he admits that academics are not one of his strong points. He hacks the system, a couple of times. Just for fun. Not deep enough to be detected, he is sure.

But he remains alone.

And then one day, when he is almost sixteen, he is called to the front office, and told something.

Something momentous.

_ He has been assigned a roommate. _

Ezhno lugs the three huge bags towards his room – their room, now – with eager anticipation.

He kicks the door open hard enough that it sends tremors up his ankles. The smartly-dressed human boy sitting on a newly-made bed startles at the sound.

Or at least Ezhno assumes it is the sound. It could be the sight of him. Ezhno smiles, and introduces himself with far more confidence than he is really feeling. There are too many uncertainties here to be sure of the result.

The human boy certainly seems small. And polite, too – is that a blasted bow? And he does not seem to like speaking at all–

Oh.

Obi-Wan is the name, and he cannot speak.

And Ezhno cannot hear.

_ Oh. _

"Git over 'ere," Ezhno says, spitting into his hand and grinning widely at Obi-Wan's disgusted expression. "This is 'ow we become friends 'ere."

They shake on it.

Ezhno grins at the boy opposite him, and knows with a feeling of utmost surety that they are going to be the best of friends, lil' Obi and he.

And Obi-Wan smiles in return.


	10. Huei of Glee Anselm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huei, from Glee Anselm to Coruscant to Ventrux and back.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Medhel An Gwyns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VBdu1n8Y7k&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=10)

The Nautolan boy is born on the precipice of a new age.

Even as his mother enters the last stage of her labour and pain swells anew in her swollen belly and back, a shudder runs through the city, and a cry bubbles into the cobalt water.

_"The Gampassa is rising!"_

It is a pivotal moment that comes only every few hundred years for this city – a historical city, one of the first of Glee Anselm to build on the backs of the giant turtles, the _Gampassa_ , and take its half-millenia cycle for their own generations.

The new mother is told to push.

She does, and it is as though the trembling of the city is her own. This egg is not cooperating. Outside, the currents are moving through the open window and rushing into the cool water of the one-roomed cottage on the outskirts of the city, now – warmer, brighter, with the fresh-warmed plankton of a sunlit sea.

Three kilometres below, past shell and skin harder than duracrete, the Gampassa has stirred from its underwater cycle, and is rising to seek air and light once more.

Nearly every occupant of the city have gathered in the streets of the city now – the old and the young, each standing on the thrumming, ochre-streaked shell-surface that makes up their streets, feeling the currents press down on them from above, racing and building into a torrent.

It has been nigh on six hundred years since the beginning of the last cycle – the diving of the Gampassa. There is not a single Nautolan alive from that last age – an age of sunlight and air, and water the sapphire blue of a bright-lit sea. The city has been lit with sea-jelly glowlamps on their circular roofs, and the sea has been a soothing grey-blue for as long as anyone can remember.

Grey-blue fliters to midnight, midnight blue bleeds into to cobalt, cobalt lightens to cerulean, then azure, and a bright white light that lances through the water like gold-wrought bars.

But as Nautila flickers in excited giggles and whispers around the gathered multitudes, the linguistic pheromones of the language tinting the currents with excitement and expectation, there is a newer cry from within a cottage – one exuding the simple, confused scent of a child.

The mother is handed her new son, and smiles down at the wriggling tadpole in her arms, brushing away the remnants of the gelatinous egg still covering him. Navy blue skin, with slate-grey eyes and a tiny, perfect mouth.

Then there is a great roar of rushing water, and the crystalline world of water and bubbles drops away at last.

The city stands still before an unbroken blue sky that arches down to meet the horizon, a curved line ever in the distance.

The sound of the wind, and the air on their drying skin.

Sound is clearer and crisper than any have ever heard before.

Someone laughs, and conversation erupts; in Basic, not Nautila, but there is crying, and shared laughter, and joy.

In the cottage, the new mother places her child in a warm tub of seawater, in the warm rectangle of light under a window; light from Glee Anselm's sun that has not touched any in this city unfiltered for six hundred years.

She climbs in with him, and holds him tight as sunlight warms them both.

"My little Huei," she says, as only a Nautolan speaking Nautila can; with her head-tresses whispering _I love you_ in scented words. "Huei Tori, my little grey sea-bird; child of the sea and sky."

Over the trickling of water slipping away under the door, the cry of sea-birds is sounding.

(:~:)

Late in his second year, when little Huei's arms and legs have finally lengthened enough to bear his weight out of water, his mother takes him for his first proper walk out in open air.

They sit where the curve of the Gampassa's shell meets the sea, gentle waves lapping at their webbed feet with the edge of the city expanding on either side of them, running a kilometre to their right and left before peeling back away along the curvature of the giant shell. There is construction work busy on landing platforms for air transports all along the shore; there is half a millenia's worth of air travel to be expected before the Gampassa dives again.

"What do you think of the sea, my darling?"

"Gampassa," Huei replies, stubby head-tresses bouncing. It is an impressive word for a two-year-old, to be sure, but Nautolans all learn the cycle of Glee Anselm at a very young age; it is in their bedtime stories, their childhood games, their songs. The ever-flowing cycle of air and water, sky and sea.

"Yes, the Gampassa holds our roots to the sea."

"Gampassa," Huei repeats, patting the shell beside him as his small feet make splish-splash noises in the water.

A tremor runs through the city, one that its inhabitants take no notice of; it is simply the movement of the creature that supports them.

Huei's mother smiles. An adorable coincidence, for the Gampassa to shift so when Huei spoke.

Huei stands carefully, on unsteady feet. "Gampassa!" he shrieks delightedly, with the high-pitched voice of a toddler speaking a new word he adores. Chubby hands are thrust into the air.

A muffled roar vibrates through the water, sending narrow, high-peaked waves shuddering away from the shoreline. The sea-birds foraging for food on the shore take to the sky as one in a multitude of rising wings, screeching in indignation.

Huei is laughing, despite having fallen backwards hard onto his rear, long kelp-fibre tunic tangled around his bare feet.

His mother stares at him with one hand pressed to her heart.

A soft clearing of the throat behind and above them. "Pardon the intrusion."

Mother and son look up the gentle swell of the Gampassa's shell up to the edge of the city, where a tall figure in brown cloak and hood is standing.

Huei stares up at the figure curiously, and notes with some wonder that it seems to feel the beat of the Gampassa's heart as he does, throbbing through their feet and up into their own.

The figure speaks again, and Huei's mother answers.

And then there is a longer conversation that Huei tunes out in favour of saying hello to his friend the Gampassa again, because there are many complicated words he has yet to understand, and this language of starlight and sea-song is simpler.

The stranger comes often to visit them in the weeks later. A few times at night, when Huei is supposed to be asleep, he wakes bleary-eyed to the sound of his parents arguing, though he does not understand the noise.

And then comes the day that Huei is handed to the stranger along with a large bag containing necessities and his favourite foods. Huei uncomprehendingly copies his father and mother's waves goodbye, and does not understand why she seems to fold in on herself as the stranger takes him away.

In the airy halls of the Temple on Coruscant, Huei soon forgets his friend the Gampassa, and the salt-sweet air of Glee Anselm. He adapts with a dogged sort of determination that his crèche-masters find adorable. He stops shouting after the first few months in the crèche, when he finds quiet obedience is rewarded more than cheek. He is the first to understand any new teaching, the first to fall in line when the masters call for order, and the first to learn to bow.

In meditation, he simply sits quietly, and soon learns to feel the thrum of Coruscant's trillion inhabitants. Memory echoes of a greater presence he once felt, singular, not these multitude points of light; but then it slips out of his mind's grasp, and he lets it be.

Everything changes the day he is given his first training lightsaber.

Talent, Huei finds, is something that can be cultivated. He throws himself into his studies with an intensity that impresses his teachers; conquers every subject before his peers, turns sparring into an art form and his own natural grace into lethality. He strives for achievement and perfections more than any of his peers.

And then he catches the eye of Master Dooku, and his world is transformed for the third time.

On the first day of his apprenticeship, Huei brings his small bag of belongings with him into the quarters he will share with his new master, and stands attentively as he is spoken to.

Master Dooku has very specific standards, and he expects his padawan to live up to them.

Huei is awake before the dawn bell every morning; rubbing the grit from his eyes, he takes care of his morning ablutions and meditation alone, and has breakfast on the table by the time his master wakes an hour after.

The mornings are taken up by classes; classes he must remain first-placed in. He knows by experience now that any slip-up will be met with a solid month of extra training. The afternoons fly by in solid four-hour sessions of lightsaber training – Huei takes to Makashi not with any natural inclination for it, but he studies at the way his master moves and simply goes to imitate it, and imitate it well.

'Saber mishaps happen, sometimes. Master Dooku does not allow him a proper lightsaber, not yet. A training 'saber set to its highest setting will burn on contact, but without serious injury. If the injury is not too severe to allow him to continue, his master is nice enough to let him see the healers after the session is over.

Then there is dinner, which Huei cooks, too, other chores, and study assignments into the late watches of the night; and then the blissful, empty oblivion of sleep before another early awakening.

Huei adapts to this new schedule with some difficulty, but chalks it up to his own inadequacy. He is sure his endurance will improve with time. Sometimes, he supposes the difficulty is Master Dooku's way of making him a better Jedi. And then he gives himself a mental swat. It is not his place to _suppose._

Rarely, after a grueling training session, his master gives him leave to go to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. When that happens, Huei often finds a secluded corner of the room, strips off his sweat-soaked tunics, and wades into the river in his underclothes.

There, drifting in the current with his eyes closed and the cool scent of the water moving through his headtresses, he imagines a sea, as only vague infant memories can bring to him – endless water, and the Force so constant and unchanging that it seems like an infinite song.

But there is no sea here, in this sector of Coruscant; no sea-birds to sing to him, or starlight come night.

So his apprenticeship continues, until Ilum, then Ventrux.

Huei finds himself adrift.

For the first time in his life, he is afraid of the sea; of diving into a dark, lightless ocean, never to rise to the surface again.

But then the Force buoys up under him like the shell of the Gampassa, long ago beyond the reach of his memory, and gives him a new master.

And the cycle brings him to the surface again, where the sunlight he cannot see is warm on his face, and lances through the Force to far-away Glee Anselm, where the Gampassa crosses oceans, and the sea-birds sing.


	11. Obi-Wan of Stewjon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Crown Prince of Stewjon was always well-loved.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [It's Quiet Uptown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2rS-ZOCoLo&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=11)

The birth of Stewjon's Crown Prince is largely uneventful.

Of course, _uneventful_ has a myriad of interpretations. In particular, Alephi Kenobi – Queen of the Stewjon system – upon being told to push in second stage of her labour, snarls spite at her midwife for the word, and squeezes her husband's hand against the fresh wave of pain.

"You're doing lovely, my dear," Ben-Avi whispers, stroking her hair from his seat beside her labour bed.

" _This is all your fault,"_ Alephi hisses back, with a glare like magma rising through glacial ice. Her hand tightens on his again, white-knuckled and sweat-palmed.

"Right you are," Ben-Avi says, genially, though his eyes flicker with worry as she pushes again, whimpering through clenched teeth.

Time passes in what seems to be lengthy bouts of distress, but what really are only minutes; Alephi gives one last scream – a scream of agony, or victory. Or both.

"Stop pushing, your majesty," the midwife calls. "The head has been delivered. One moment, and he'll have turned enough for us help him the rest of the way."

Ben-Avi looks faintly green, but a smile is blooming on his features all the same.

A moment later, Alephi relaxes. "He's out?" she whispers, tugging on he husband's hand.

"He's out," Ben-Avi replies, tears glimmering in his eyes.

Alephi smiles through her own tears for a moment, despite not being able to see the child at the end of the bed. And then she stills, furrows her brow.

"He's not crying," she says, urgently. "Ben-Avi–"

Ben-Avi is staring, and so is the midwife – but not at the new mother.

"He is," Ben-Avi says, with a hollow note in his voice. "He _is_ crying."

Alephi cranes her tired, aching neck to look – and the midwife holds up her child for her.

Oh, the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

She sees the curve of a red, chubby cheek, and slime-covered russet hair; the swell of a newborn stomach with the grey-green umbilical cord still attached, tiny, perfect hands curled into fists–

–and a mouth open wide with soundless cries.

Something rises in Alephi's chest – a feeling, not only about this soundless cry, but more. Something of the future.

The midwife – the whole medical team, now – is looking at them both with ill-disguised pity. "We've scanned him. He's otherwise perfectly healthy," she says, in that calm, professional tone every medical professional uses, in situations like this.

"Oh," Alephi murmurs, faintly. New tears are forming in the corners of her eyes, now. She turns to Ben-Avi, to find that his misty eyes have turned into a rainfall, too.

"He's perfect," she says.

"He is," Ben-Avi chokes back, tracing thumb over her cheekbone, despite the crystal rivers running down his own.

And then a few moments later, their new child is placed into their arms, swaddled with warmed cloths, and they begin to laugh, despite everything.

"Hello, Obi-Wan Kenobi," Alephi murmurs, as the medical staff busy around the new family. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

And although Obi-Wan cannot answer, one tiny hand grasps his father's thumb reflexively, as his other does his mother's index finger, and he calms in their shared embrace, opening sky-blue eyes to blink up at them.

(:~:)

Stewjon falls in love with their new Crown Prince nearly as quickly as his parents do, though they only receive but glimpses of him; the official holophoto of the royal family on his third day, and a few more scattered over official functions in the next few months. His inability to make a sound is discussed, and many a tear shed for the young prince's sake, but comes with the equal planet-wide determination to value him no less for it.

Obi-Wan is seven months old when his motor function develops enough to grasp smaller objects, and with it, control of something greater still.

Ben-Avi stumbles into the family's private kitchen early one morning, when the sun has yet to peek up over the palace gardens, but Obi-Wan is awake and hungry, and a father must oblige.

He places Obi-Wan in his high-chair and staggers over to the conservator unit with eyes barely cracked open, feeling for a jar of muja puree with the exactness of a well-trained hand.

Something smacks into his head, and Ben-Avi jerks around with a barely-contained shout; but there is nothing there, except Obi-Wan in his chair, who looks back at him with an expression of _what-are-you-looking-at-me-for?_

Ben-Avi looks down, and finds a thin piece of baked bread by his feet: a broken breadstick.

He stares uncomprehendingly at it for a moment, then up to the bowl of breadsticks on the table. The bowl is made of Felucian amber, and the table Endorian wood; both quite solid, and the table edge quite out of reach for Obi-Wan's stubby little arms.

"I've finally reached the point of exhaustion where I'm actively hallucinating," Ben-Avi says, to nobody in particular.

Obi-Wan is flapping an arm at him now, giggling silently, as if to say, _hurry up with that and come play with me._

Ben-Avi turns back to the conservator unit.

Something whistles through the air.

Ben-Avi shouts properly this time as something blunt but nonetheless hard collides with the back of his head. In his effort to turn around faster, he trips over his own slippered feet and crumples to the floor, bringing half the contents of the conservator unit as he does so. A veritable mountain of purees, minced meats, chilled milk and other food rains down upon him, glass jars smashing into the tiled floor.

There is an answering shout from the corridor outside – a moment later, an armed guard has burst into the room, blaster at the ready, with a frazzled-looking Alephi on her heels, obviously having just risen at the noise.

A pause, as the two women take in the sight of the First Duke of Stewjon sitting dazedly on the kitchen floor, covered in the remnants of enough pureed food to feed an infant for half a week.

"Sir?" the guard enquires. Her long hair swings over her armoured shoulder as she glances around the room.

"Exactly what it looks like," Ben-Avi replies, covering his face with the cleaner of his hands.

Alephi is holding a hand over her mouth, now, though the creases forming at the corners of her eyes belie her amusement. "Thank you," she directs at the guard. "If you would be so kind as to inform housekeeping…?"

"Yes, ma'am," the guard replies, holstering her weapon with a small smile.

When the family is alone, Alephi wraps her housecoat closer around herself and steps carefully over to her husband and son.

"Hi," Ben-Avi says, grinning sheepishly up at her.

"Hi," she replies, smiling as Obi-Wan smacks his high-chair table for her attention. "Is there a sorry story involved?"

"Um, actually, I'm not sure what really happened."

A raised eyebrow.

"Someone kept throwing breadsticks at my head," Ben-Avi backtracks. Gloop slides off his pyjamas as he shifts.

"Someone," Alephi says, dryly. "Who, exactly? Obi-Wan's all over here by his lonesome self." She picks up her son as she speaks, and Obi-Wan settles into her arms happily.

"I'm not sure," Ben-Avi says, looking down at himself as he tries to brush some of the food off his Alderaanian-silk pyjamas, before giving them up as lost. "Do you think–"

A dull _thok_ as something collides with his head again.

Dead silence.

Ben-Avi looks up slowly, to find Alephi staring at the infant in her arms with utter shock.

Obi-Wan is giggling soundlessly, bright blue eyes fixed on his father.

"Dear…?" Ben-Avi ventures.

Alephi swallows, visibly. "This is going to be somewhat hard to believe, husband," she begins, "but Obi-Wan waved a hand and a breadstick flew out of the bowl at your head."

"Oh."

Then:

"Are you sure?" Ben-Avi says, weakly.

Alephi's gaze snaps to him. "Of course I'm sure. I saw–"

Obi-Wan chooses this moment to flail a chubby hand, and a breadstick whips so quickly out of the bowl that it falls over with a _thunk._

Ben-Avi's brain is so preoccupied with coming to terms with this that he forgets to duck.

The breadstick hits him directly between the eyes.

Alephi nearly drops Obi-Wan. Ben-Avi massages the red spot on his forehead with a shaking hand.

Obi-Wan is practically writhing with delight now, lips open in silent laughter.

Alephi gropes for a chair, sits at the table with Obi-Wan on her lap.

Ben-Avi rises out of the mess and goes to sit next to her. He takes her free hand.

Stewjon's sun rises and bathes all three of them in its golden light, but only two of them realise it is not only a new day dawning, but a whole another episode of their lives; one of sacrifice, and tears, and love beyond what they thought possible.

(:~:)

They argue for five months over what is to be done.

Contacting the Jedi Order itself is held off for a long as possible; they enquire through other, more hidden routes instead, and list out their options with the brutal efficiency of the diplomatically trained.

The Corps indicate with impeccable politeness that they do not oversee training of younglings. The Temple on Coruscant serves that purpose.

Alephi and Ben-Avi look further.

"We could send him to Jedha every half-year."

"What will two months a year do for him? He's progressed to hovering _tables_ by now, Aleph. You know how education works. He'll never learn properly if he keeps going back and forth between here and Jedha."

"I don't want my son to be a stranger to me, Ben!"

"Aleph, I don't want him to grow up being unable to control this!"

"Don't talk to me about control. I'm in blasted control every day, from dawn till midnight. Don't make me lose it."

"Fine. I'll take Obi-Wan watch tonight."

"Fine."

(:~:)

The week after Obi-Wan's first birthday – an event held with great tradition, where all the nobles of court cooed over the crown prince in his adorable little birthday robes, while his parents held him with smiles like glass – they come to a decision.

The Jedi come to receive their new initiate three days after.

Obi-Wan stares up from his toys to the tall, brown-cloaked figure with a smile of wonder, and holds out a hand.

To a simple bystander, it might seem a simple social motion, as expected of a twelve-month-old child; but Alephi sees differently, as does the stranger.

It is Obi-Wan greeting, for the first time, someone like him.

The stranger takes Obi-Wan's hand.

(:~:)

In the days after, Ben-Avi takes to wandering the empty nursery like a spirit without its tether. Alephi has taken to sleeping in a separate room. Ben-Avi does not blame her.

Alephi throws herself into her duties; trains up ten new commanding officers for Stewjon's military forces herself with a fiery spirit.

Outwardly, they remain Stewjon's Queen and First Duke; diplomatic, gracious, kind. In the Sufari palace, the royal quarters grows colder by the day.

They barely speak to each other for a year. There is nothing to say, and too much all at once.

Alephi does not visit the nursery. She cannot bear it, she says. This, Ben-Avi also understands.

Eventually, two years into their loss, Ben-Avi presents himself in her throne room one morning, before morning council; Alephi looks him over – dressed in the plainest court clothing as he is – and asks her attendants for privacy.

Ben-Avi lowers himself to one knee.

It is not often that even the citizens of Stewjon do this; this is reserved for only ceremonies. Stewjonian royalty do not value themselves above their people.

"I'm not going to say much," Ben-Avi says. "I have a feeling that if I do, I'll fall back onto my old patterns, and so will you."

Alephi regards him with silence, the crossed short swords she always carries with her jutting severely over her shoulders.

"I am not suggesting we forget Obi-Wan," he continues, staring at the floor, where the Stewjon Songbird sings in the crest of Alephi's reign, forever etched there in Sundari marble. "But I am suggesting…I am _hoping_ …to begin anew. Please."

"I see," Alephi says, without any inflection at all.

"Please," Ben-Avi repeats, without looking up. His hands are clenched around his knee.

"And is there any reason for this hope, husband?"

Ben-Avi raises his head. "There is no reason to continue in grief. And so I choose hope, instead. Are you not my duty, as I am yours?"

Alephi watches him for the longest moment.

And then there is a rustle of heavy fabric as she rises from her throne and descends the steps to him. Another rustle, more prolonged than the first, as she kneels down in front of him, and pulls him into an embrace.

Ben-Avi chokes on his next breath, lifts shaking hands to return it. He buries his face in his wife's shoulder and lets the tears come.

If his shoulder is soon soaking wet, too, he is glad for it.

(:~:)

The road to rebuilding takes time.

They pick up sign-language studies again where they had left off, determined to be able to communicate with their son should they ever see him again.

Another child does not come easy; it takes years of doctors and sorrows before they find themselves back in the labour room again. This time, the baby's cry sounds even before they can expect it.

And then all three of them are crying, though for very different reasons.

"Kifi-Ra Kenobi," Ben-Avi says. "Our little lion cub of a daughter, with a Jedha lion's roar."

That same moment, light-years and systems away, Obi-Wan Kenobi's hair is being braided into a padawan braid; and he is masterless no longer.

The Force has always been unifying, though none of them are aware of it.


	12. Eight Years Before Padawan Kenobi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eight years before the beginning.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Ashes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNdCq_y7jW8&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=12)

Tahl kicks down Qui-Gon's door a week after Xanatos DuCrion is lost to the dark side on Telos.

The indented metal groans as she slides the door shut with the Force; the Temple maintenance department will not be pleased. But Tahl flicks the thought away in favour of noting the thin layer of dust that covers the floorboards of Qui-Gon's quarters, instead. These rooms have not been cleaned since the end of his mission to Telos, then.

The man himself is nowhere to be found in the kitchen or living area – no ceramplast cups in the sink, or leftovers on the table; a glance in the conservator unit yields nothing but air. The curtains leading to the balcony and beyond are closed, and sunlight shafts in ponderous columns through gaps between them, stern 'saber salutes through still and silent air. Dust piles in a fine layer over the Felucian wood table, too, with chairs unmoved and untouched.

If it were not for the broad, bare-footed footprints tracking across the floor, Tahl would not have thought there was anyone here at all.

She does not bother checking the bedchambers – the larger she knows Qui-Gon will have found no respite in since his return, and the smaller is now an untouchable memory to one who has changed. Tahl crosses instead over the empty floorboards in quiet boot-steps – she would never have done so without taking off her shoes, before, but this is far too important – and sweeps open the curtains to the balcony with a sure hand.

She finds Qui-Gon kneeling on the hard tiles of his balcony, eyes closed to the brilliant sunset of Coruscant Prime. His feet are bare, his beard untamed, his lips chapped and fissured, and his robes still stained with the fires of Telos.

He does not look up, or even open his eyes.

Tahl stands there for a long moment, scrutinising her closest childhood friend.

"Qui-Gon," she murmurs, eventually. There is no need to state her name, or why she has come here. He knows her voice and her tread too well for that.

Qui-Gon does not respond.

"Qui, open your eyes and look at me."

Nothing. The rise and fall of Qui-Gon's chest is barely perceptible.

Heart clenching, Tahl sends out a questing flicker of the Force. Qui-Gon's mind is locked down in beskar-strong shields, seamless and obsidian-smooth. But he _is_ aware. And Tahl is now aware that he is aware.

He simply refuses to surface.

She frowns severely, and stares down at him.

"Qui-Gon," she barks, all gentleness gone in favour of authority, now; "Get up."

When Qui-Gon's chest simply rises and falls in the same, ponderous pattern, once, twice, and thrice more, Tahl comes to a decision.

She folds herself onto her knees beside him, blinks away the glare of Coruscant's sunset, and closes her eyes. Part of her wishes she took the time for a drink of water instead of rushing here immediately after her mission transport landed, but the dryness of her mouth and the empty pit of her stomach matter little, not now.

She rests in the Force, and waits.

Coruscant Prime slips below the horizon, and the balcony grows cold.

She waits, still.

The night wears on, and Coruscant's four moons string themselves across the sky in waxing sickles and waning spheres, and still she waits, matching her meditation breaths to the slow, shallow breathing of the one beside her.

Qui-Gon is as still and unmoving beside her as the Bronzium statues that line the Processional Way far below; but as the night grows weary and lightens into day, his breathing deepens to match hers, and the beskar-welded walls of his mind soften.

In the silent, still hour before the dawn, when the sky is a deep, cobalt blue, Qui-Gon shifts in place, a hiss of stiff joints and muscles escaping his lips – and though his eyes do not open, his palm flips over ever-so-slowly when Tahl's fingers touch his knuckles, to allow her to grasp his hand.

They wait for the dawn together.

Warmth creeps over their knees and hands and up their frozen tabards, up chins and cheeks and eyes. Tahl opens her eyes to the bright light of a Coruscanti morning, and the cacophony of the city-planet below. Her throat is completely dry, and her belly numb from hunger. She looks down at her hand, and then to her left.

Qui-Gon breathes out in one long exhale – a sigh – and opens his eyes.

His smile is as stiff and weak as the rest of him as his lips open and he whispers the barest of words.

"You're hungry," he says, even as the last of his outer shields crumble away, revealing a ravenous hunger within.

Tahl attempts to clear her throat, and finds it too dry to do so. "Come to the refectory with me, then," she says.

He shakes his head, a slow and fragmented motion.

Her hand tightens around his. "Come with me," she repeats, anger rising in her parched throat.

Qui-Gon meets her gaze with one that is not entirely there. "Xanatos," he says.

"I know," Tahl murmurs.

"He's dead," Qui-Gon says, faintly.

Tahl's eyes harden."I don't believe you."

"He's as good as dead."

She does not reply to that. There is no good way of doing so.

"You were right," Qui-Gon says, closing his eyes against some unendurable pain.

"What?"

"When I chose him to be my padawan," Qui-Gon continues, each word as slow and as shattered as the wastes of his Force-presence. "You cautioned me against it – told me that a gifted mind and quick use of the Force did not mean we should be master and apprentice."

"I did," Tahl murmurs, "but I grew to love him as much as you did."

Something flashes in Qui-Gon's eyes as he looks up. "Don't. Don't use that word."

He is right, Tahl knows. That word is never one that can be spoken between them – not for others, and not for themselves. It is too dear a price.

They watch the city together for a long while.

"When I found him he was so young," Qui-Gon whispers. "I thought myself a Jedi in full then – a brash young Knight with dreams of a magnitude only surpassed by my head. I saw only potential. I did not see the rest."

Tahl remains silent.

"And when the time came for his Initiate tournaments, I – I thought the Force was guiding me to him."

"We often assume the Force guides us to certain things when in fact our hearts have been set on them from the beginning," Tahl says, quietly. "Letting go and allowing the Force to truly take us where it will is different. I too have not allowed it to, yet."

To her surprise, a small, exhausted snort sounds from her left.

"Your wisdom is ever appreciated, Master Tahl," Qui-Gon says, fondness quirking at the edge of his mouth.

"Thank me by doing me a favour," Tahl says.

"What is it?" Qui-Gon says tiredly, eyelids flickering.

"Get up and come have breakfast with me in the refectory."

He shakes his head, blinking rapidly. "I can barely move."

Tahl rises into a half-crouch, ignoring the screaming of her knees and calves, and hooks her arm under his shoulders.

"Up," she says.

He trembles, but does as he is told.

They stagger to their feet. "Blasted height," Tahl grumbles, even as a breathy laugh escapes her. "Why are you such a Sith-spawned giant?"

Qui-Gon's head sags until his chin rests upon the top of her head, and Tahl hears, _senses_ , him breathe a half-conscious sigh and whisper something.

_Tahl, I-_

But the words are too much, should they be true.

It includes the word they never speak of.

Tahl stumbles, and Qui-Gon does too – but the next moment he has put a foot forward, and she has too. His mind is fortified once more, with words and emotions he will never speak of again, of Telos and more.

Tahl pushes her own thoughts away, and helps her dearest friend step by step towards towards the refectory, food, and _life_ , while worlds away, Xanatos DuCrion peels away the bacta bandage over his cheek, and feels for the first time the broken circle of the scar on his cheek.


	13. Home is the Sailor (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A three-parter detailing Huei's non-existent coping with losing Obi-Wan to slavery after chapter 35 of The Silent Song.
> 
> Music for this chapter: [Sounds From Scattered Seashells](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEGXYEULikU&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=13)

Two weeks after Qui-Gon Jinn departs on his search for his padawan, Feemor Ner'iah comes to a decision regarding Huei Tori.

" _This will not stand,"_ he whispers to himself.

Huei's bedroom door closes, its occupant having said no more to Feemor than a quiet, "Goodnight, Master," after yet another day at his Senate apprenticeship.

Feemor closes his eyes, briefly. Chancellor Valorum has nothing but praise in his reports. Huei's conduct has been impeccable, his work brilliant and indispensable. To the casual observer, Huei remains completely, perfectly functional, despite the loss of his closest friend to an unknown fate at the hands of slave traders.

It is perhaps what might be expected from a young, exceptional Jedi.

It is not what is expected from a fifteen-year-old young Nautolan who has very recently, and possibly permanently, lost his best friend to slavery.

Ezhno had wept, when Feemor told the two of them. Huei had not, nor has he since. There is something steel-lined and beskar-etched about this version of Feemor's padawan – an echo back to his days under Dooku's teaching. Masked. Emotionless. Distant.

Not the boy who loves to cook, and read volumes of raised Aurebesh late into the night – works his former master forbid him to read, of far-off lands and fanciful imagination.

And so, late in the evening as it is, Feemor goes to find the Council.

"Master Ner'iah," Mace says. "The hour grows late. Why have you convened us so?" His voice is not a sigh, but it is very close to one.

Looking into Mace's grave eyes, Feemor notes with a tug of his heartstrings that Ezhno's brash voice has been rather less present in the Temple in the last fortnight. Mace, too, has been noted by many to spend more time in his quarters than was his wont before. It is not difficult to see the connection.

Even Ezhno must find a safe place to weep.

It would seem Mace knows the deeper effects of the loss of Obi-Wan Kenobi just as well as Feemor.

"Masters," Feemor says, inclining his head, "I wish to acquire two weeks' leave for my Padawan and I."

"Not necessary to convene the Council it was, for this," Yoda harrumphs, green eyes sharp under deceptively heavy eyelids.

"It is necessary because of where I intend to take him," Feemor answers. "With your permission, masters, I would take Huei to Glee Anselm."

A beat, in which more than one member of the Council's Force-signatures fluctuate in surprise. One member in particular is examining Feemor with such intensity that Feemor finds himself hard-pressed to ignore it.

He blinks slowly, and does not return Dooku's gaze. He keeps his eyes trained dead ahead, instead.

Mace's fingers tap his knee with ponderous gravity. "I see," he says. "I trust you have a reason?"

"In the wake of Obi-Wan's disappearance, Huei has not been himself," Feemor says. "I feel that he has…regressed."

"Regressed?" Yoda says, a frown further wrinkling his brow.

Feemor pauses. Dooku's gaze is still heavy upon him.

He chooses his words with care. "I have not seen him in such a state since our earliest days as Master and Padawan. He is…withdrawn. Cold. He functions as well as he ever has, but Huei has always had an affinity for adaptation. Unfortunately, it seems that in this particular instance he inadvertently protected himself by not responding at all."

A new voice interjects. "Then what is the purpose of bringing him to the place of his birth?" Dooku says, voice like sharpened silk. "We all saw how Padawan Kenobi's sudden encounter with his estranged family unbalanced him."

" _I don't quite think that is the right word,"_ Feemor replies, unable to completely hide the bite in his tone despite his best efforts. He is returning his grandmaster's stare now, unwaveringly. "And I would ask you not to apply the same reasoning to Huei."

"I find myself unable to ascertain your meaning," Dooku replies, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Feemor's eyes flash. "Huei is _my_ padawan, and I am bringing what I see as our shared best course of action before the Council."

His emphasis on the word _my_ does not go unnoticed.

Yoda's stick connects with the marble floor in a sharp _crack._

Feemor tears his gaze away from the spark of anger in Dooku's.

"Withdraw and wait, Master Ner'iah," Yoda says. "Confer, the Council must."

Feemor inclines his head and deliberately refuses to meet Dooku's eyes again on the way out.

The five-minute wait seems longer than usual, but soon he is back before the half-circle of twelve seats.

"Grant you a fortnight's leave, we do," Yoda harrumphs. "But carefully tread you must, Master Ner'iah."

"Thank you, masters," Feemor says, inclining his head. As he does so, he sneaks a glance at his grand-master between the long columns of hair on either side of his chin.

Dooku's face is as empty and unreadable as a seamless mask.

Mace remains silent, but he is watching Feemor with the same expression he sometimes gives Qui-Gon; the one Feemor knows translates to _I-sure-hope-you-know-what-you're-blasted-doing_.

Feemor takes his leave, strides slowly through the quieting halls of the Temple, and carefully slides open Huei's bedroom door when he returns to quarters.

Huei is asleep, his headtresses spread in a navy fan across his pillow, the silver-white of his padawan braid glimmering like pearls in a frozen sea. Still in slumber like this, the slow sharpening of his jaw and the gradual lengthening of his headtresses is all the more prominent; the slow wiping away of childhood.

Feemor knows his padawan is too much of a light sleeper to risk running a gentle hand over those still headtresses, but he crosses to the window to ensure that there is just enough of a breeze to keep the room cool. Huei has taken to sleeping with the blinds up since he lost his sight; the ever-present lights of Coruscant washes the chamber in an undulating pattern of soft yellow-white light, like sunlight on the ocean floor.

Feemor closes the door softly behind him. He will wake Huei in the morning.

There is time, yet.


	14. Home is the Sailor (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this chapter: [At Anchor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJhfEIyd6jA&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=14)

"I'll ask again: where are we going, Master?"

Huei is less than impressed when Feemor shushes him and continues to make a horrific racket doing something – probably stuffing their belongings in the miniscule storage space of their tiny room aboard this inter-system transport, if the echoes are anything to judge by.

Actually, Huei had already been unimpressed when his master had promptly pounced upon him after their weekly sign-language lesson with Ben-Avi; the feeling had only degenerated further when it became apparent that Feemor was leading him towards the scent of tibanna exhaust and engine grease – an inter-system dockyard.

Now, the at-dock hum of the ship hyperdrive rises in pitch as a shudder runs though the durasteel and up Huei's ankles. The scent of fresh tibanna flares anew and tickles the chemoreceptors in his headtresses.

As if on cue, Feemor mutters in satisfaction and slams the locker door shut with a bone-rattling _clang._

Huei flinches as the sound snaps over him.

"Sorry," Feemor says immediately.

Huei feels his stomach drop as the transport pulls away from the dock – the split second between the unlocking of hyperdrive dampeners and the activation of shipwide gravity. It takes away the last reference point he has left – leaves him nothing but the floor under his feet, and the echoing sound of snapping durasteel.

Did Obi-Wan feel the same, on that slave-ship to an unknown system?

A hand finds Huei's shoulder, guides him to sit on a questionably-soft surface. He runs webbed fingers over it and identifies it as lumpy bunk.

Feemor's other hand brushes Huei's cheek, warm. "I'm sorry, young one," he murmurs. "I was so excited about this trip I forgot to cater to your – very sensible, might I add – anxieties."

Huei takes a breath. Pretends that it did not shudder. "Where are we going, Master?" he repeats, with devastating calm.

A pause. The Force gathers, like a questing wave.

"Glee Anselm."

The name does not register immediately; for Huei's entire existence in the Order, Glee Anselm has been a Mid Rim planet and nothing more. Over ninety percent water, homeworld of Anselmi and Nautolans–

Oh.

In shock, the wildest things seem possible. A hundred scenarios rise in Huei's logical mind before he has taken a single breath. _A trial? A mission? A test? Or_ – his heart seized in his chest – _he has failed his apprenticeship, and so is being taken back to be left there? The home he no longer remembers?_

" _Huei! Breathe!"_ Feemor's voice is as sharp as the fingers digging into Huei's shoulders.

Huei's lungs expand at the command. Gulps in a painful breath he did not know had stopped at his throat.

His master's voice is very close to him now, and a hand slips off his shoulder to grasp his. Huei latches on to the 'saber-calloused fingers like a lifeline.

"Remember what we talked about?" Feemor says, quietly. Slowly. "What you shouldn't do anymore?"

"Not- not to extrapolate," Huei manages.

Feemor makes a noise of confirmation, but does not speak again. The silence allows Huei to think, to take the time he needs to reorganize his thoughts.

"Not to extrapolate from information I don't have," Huei says, voice growing more sure as his breathing evens out. "And not to assume that I am at fault."

"Yes, that exactly," Feemor replies, easily. "Good job, my young padawan."

"I'm…not at fault, am I?"

"Not in the slightest."

"You'll tell me when you're disappointed," Huei murmurs, reciting the words in a soft exhale.

"Yes, which I'm not at all right now."

"Okay."

"Okay." Feemor smiles, though he knows Huei cannot see it. And, although his padawan may be perhaps growing a little too old for it, Feemor sits down beside him and pulls him into an embrace. It is a testament to Huei's state of mind that he returns it without a single complaint.

Huei says something, muffled in the folds of Feemor's cloak.

"Hmm?"

Huei shifts, and repeats himself. "Is this a trial?"

Feemor opens his mouth to reply in the negative, but the Force halts him mid-syllable. "The Force shall answer that," he says instead, resting his chin on top of Huei's head. "But I hope you shall find comfort through it, nonetheless."

Huei hugs him tighter, and Feemor lets him.

(:~:)

Feemor would never admit it, but upon the opening of the transport ramp into the salt-sweet air of Glee Anselm, he is quite sure he is twice as nervous than his padawan.

He had commed ahead, of course. Qui-Gon hadn't been _completely_ remiss in teaching him courtesy. But how _does_ one speak to the parent of one's padawan – who has been out of contact with said padawan for fifteen years and counting, and now has to hear the news that the Order that she entrusted him to sent him on a mission that took his sight from him?

"You'll be fine, Huei," Feemor says, bracingly. "Just fine. Be yourself, act natural–"

If he were anything other than completely focused on sensing the world ahead, Huei might have taken this prime opportunity to snark at his master a little; but he stands ramrod-straight as the warmth of Glee Anselm's primary sun washes over him.

"I smell something."

"Padawan?"

Huei has stiffened. His headtails are flickering haphazardly in the wind, catching the faintest scents where Feemor's human nose cannot. He stands rooted to the spot, shivering as he stares unseeingly down the ramp. The expression on Huei's face is so unnerving that Feemor almost takes a step back; a prickle runs down his arms.

Beyond the lengthening gap of sunlight, the sea-birds are singing.

The ramp makes an odd noise as it hits the ground. Master and Padawan emerge into the afternoon sunlight, and the ground trembles under their feet as their boots leave durasteel.

Rosy-white low buildings fan out around the transport dock in layers of variegated pinks and chalk, dotted with small holes around windows and doors; Feemor stares at them for a long moment before realising that every house, hall, and gurgling fountain has been shaped out of coral – not hewn, nor carved, but encouraged to grow in such a way as to curve and soar in graceful, seamless heights, as far into the distance as the eye can see. The ground itself is a burgundy-brown surface that glistens like polished garnet even when wholly dry; solid and semi-transparent, and ever-so-slightly curved.

Feemor knows, of course, what this is. The shell of the great Gampassa, upon the backs of which the Nautolan people built their first cities, diving to the deep and rising to starlit skies in cycles half-millennia in length.

But he can _see_ it.

His Padawan cannot.

Huei is standing quite still, both hands grasping his small bag of belongings. His face flickers rapidly between expressions; wonder, curiosity, loss. The sea wind catches his padawan braid, flings it out behind him like a string of stray pearls tossing on tumultuous waves.

Feemor takes a step closer. "Huei?"

Huei swallows. "Master."

An image flashes over the bond between them, fleeting and fuzzy, like a childhood drawing done in chubby, uncoordinated hands.

Sand-smoothed walls in the sea breeze, sunlit water and sea-birds. A green-webbed hand grasping his.

Home.

As if in answer, a rumble sounds below their feet, dances up the white-pink coral of the low buildings around them. Sea birds flock to the air in a cacophony of annoyed agitation.

_ Something _ brushes past Feemor's consciousness in the Force; something so ancient and inscrutable that he almost forgets to breathe.

"Oh," Huei murmurs, faintly. His eyes are lined with an edge of moisture now, limning his silver-scarred sclera.

Clearing his throat, Feemor pulls out a scrap of flimsy. "Right. We'll have to walk a little way towards– _padawan?_ "

Huei is already a dozen paces away and counting. One webbed hand runs lightly over the rough coral of the friezes and edifices he passes by. His fingers skip and tumble over the railings and shopfronts, but none of the passing Nautolans seem to mind; they favour Huei with smiles and verbal greetings, to the latter of which Huei replies in kind, all while keeping a steady and never-ceasing pace up the street.

Feemor finds himself quite left in the dust.

When he catches up, he opens his mouth to gently chide his apprentice (and more so, to politely ask what in the _stars_ he is doing) but then Huei's lips move, and Feemor's jaw clicks shut.

" _Five dozen steps from the ships to the sea,"_ Huei murmurs.

Ahead, beyond the gentle curve of the Gampassa's shell, a line of shimmering blue is coming into view.

The Force thrums through the air, takes Feemor in a puppeteer's hold as he follows his padawan, each new step in the exact spot that Huei's foot was the moment before.

The crash of waves filters towards them, the inhale and exhale of moon and tide. The line of blue thickens into a blur, and then suddenly, the Jedi crest the curve of the street and the coral-sung buildings below them drop away to a vast, glittering ocean, waves of azure capped with white foam. This is a painting that morphs forever into every shade of blue in existence; cerulean and sapphire, cobalt and turquoise, out to a horizon where the unbroken shell of sky meets the brushstrokes of the sea.

Huei's pace slows. His head turns over his shoulder towards his master, beseechingly. "Is that sound I hear…?"

"Yes," Feemor says, trying in vain to hide the lump in his throat. "That's the sea."

"I wish I could see it." Huei sucks in a breath, and squares his shoulders. _"Five dozen steps from the ships to the sea,"_ he repeats, as he steps carefully down to the lapping of waves at the shore, head angled to listen. A pace from the hissing tide, he makes a sharp turn to his right.

" _And a dozen more from the sea to the tree_ , _"_ Huei murmurs.

There, set a little ways back from the shoreline, is a single, solitary palm tree – a Sabiloni palm. Flowers cling to its leaves like starbursts of silver-white. Fragrant, clear sap drips from their satin edges.

Huei's fingers spread over the smooth surface of the trunk as he passses, a whisper of 'saber callouses against polished bark. _"Two dozen steps from the tree, and see…"_ His voice catches on the last word, because he knows he cannot.

But Feemor can.

Beyond the palm, up a path studded with mother-of-pearl and framed by the arch of a peach-coral doorway, there is a green-skinned Nautolan woman waiting for the Jedi.

Huei stops.

" _You've sung your journey back to me,"_ he whispers, the childish rhyme slipping from his lips.

The Nautolan woman makes an aborted movement – her hand reaches out and falls back almost in the same instant, yearning in her slate-grey eyes. Her simple, homespun garments are embellished with hand-sewn shells, and the soft sea wind tumbles through her waist-long headtresses and back towards the Jedi.

Huei's headtresses flicker and scent the wind. "Master? Is…is there someone there?"

Feemor presses a hand to his heart, and bows low to her. "Yes," he says. "She's there."

Huei swallows. "She smells like something… _before_. As though she…" He lets his bag fall to the ground. Takes one halting step forward, and then another. And another.

He halts an arm's length away from her.

She looks across at him, and tears tumble down her cheeks.

For Huei, he only knows these: the warmth on his skin that tells of sunlight, the smell of salt on the wind, and the soft, almost-sobbing breaths of the one stood before him, barely discernable over the song of the waves.

For a moment, neither of them move.

And then trembling green hands reach up to rest on Huei's cheeks, lingering at the faint scars at the edges of his eyes where the acid that took his sight also seared his skin.

"My little grey sea-bird," a musical voice says. "My Huei Tori."

Feemor watches, hardly daring to breathe. He makes himself busy shooing away the sea-birds that peck curiously at his boots, instead.

"You're…" Huei murmurs, raising a hand to grasp her wrist where it meets his chin. She makes a little squeaking noise at the contact; perhaps she did not expect his 'saber callouses. Their head-tresses flicker around each other, not quite touching, dancing and communicating in unconscious memory.

Huei swallows audibly. "What do I…"

"You can call me Nila," she says, smiling radiantly through her crystalline waterfall. "I'm so glad to see you again, Huei."

Despite the opaque white lines that scar his eyes, Huei lowers his chin and seems to look right through her and into the Unifying Force.

"Mother," he says, decidedly.

Feemor gapes.

At the word, Nila looks as though she might collapse. Certainly, her tears start anew. "Thank you for this gift," she whispers. "I did not expect it."

Huei's expression is rapidly morphing into one of helpless bewilderment, now that his mother's tears have audibly swelled again; Feemor hastens forward and bows deeply.

"Ma'am," he says, "It is an honour to meet you."

"Master Ner'iah," Nila says, turning to him with an unreadable expression. She does not extend a hand in greeting; perhaps she cannot quite bring herself to let go of her son yet. "You are welcome. Come in."

She grasps Huei's hand with her own, and Huei follows her, as easily and naturally as breathing. He does not turn back, not once.

Feemor stands there in the bright afternoon sunlight, and squashes down the sudden, traitorous twinge in his heart with vehemence.

He stoops to snatch up Huei's pack, and follows.

(:~:)

Nila's cottage is filled with memories of two people who are no longer in her life.

Feemor excuses himself to pack away his and Huei's packs, and passes a long hunting spear carved from what appeared to be a shell as long as he is tall, beside a holo of a smiling young Nautolan man, with midnight blue skin and bright grey eyes. A little further on, a shelf with toys carved out of sea-hardened wood; a miniature spear the mirror of the one set on the wall, a sea sponge ball covered with small, webbed hand-prints in a dozen shades of paint. There are a child's scribbled drawings in kelp paint lovingly framed and hung on every wall; teething rings of hardened anemone arranged in a careful pile under the pooling light of a window.

None of these things have a speck of dust on them, but there is something in the way they sit of the shelves that speak of long stillness, and lack of use.

Nila's voice drifts back to Feemor from where she is sat at the sandstone kitchen table with Huei. "I am sorry your father is not here to see what a fine young man you've become. There was an Anselmi raid not too long after you left with the Jedi. I had my knife in my hand, but I could not reach him."

"Oh," Huei's voice says – and Feemor can hear the yearn to help in his voice, that quiet, searching heart that Dooku tried so hard to burn out of him – "I'm sorry."

Feemor pauses before rounding the corner, stands quiet and still. He would rather not ruin their privacy.

"It's been a long span of years, dear one. But I thank you nonetheless."

A tug of lost, embarrassed curiosity through the training bond; Feemor closes his eyes, and breathes a silent sigh. Huei does not remember his father, and is too afraid of causing pain to ask.

But that is a minor point in the larger problem brewing on the horizon. Nila's Force-signature is filled with an aching joy at her son's presence, but underneath, there simmers something else. Something directed not at Huei, but at Feemor.

Perhaps Huei is too unbalanced to sense it – but his master can.

Best to get it over with.

Feemor squares his shoulders, and steps into the kitchen, composed.

Nila glances up at him, and the smile drops off her face. "Huei," she says, quietly. "It's been so long since you were here. Perhaps you'd like to step outside and greet the sea?"

Huei may be overwhelmed, but he is far from stupid. His head swivels unerringly towards Feemor's Force-presence. "Master?" he enquires, a line appearing at his forehead.

"Go, Huei," Feemor says, and knows Huei can hear the smile in his voice. "We'll be just a moment."

"But–"

" _Padawan."_

Huei's palm-woven chair scrapes on the floor as he stands. He rises, tight-lipped, and slips outside.

In the stillness of the kitchen, Nila's hands have gone pale green on the table, clasped as they are around each other. "Sit, Master Jedi," she says, quietly.

Feemor does as he is told.

Nila stares down at her fingers. "You know what I am going to ask," she says.

"I am prepared for it."

"Are you?" Nila's gaze holds Feemor in place with an intensity that rivals the most venerated of Jedi. "You told me of his blindness in advance. I might have beeen grateful for it, were it not common courtesy. I have seen it now, for myself, and I do not love Huei any less for it. But it still remains that he has been blinded and I do not know why, or how."

Feemor bows his head. "I am-"

Her eyes flash. "Don't apologise. I assume it wasn't you." This last part is said with such devastating calm that Feemor knows that if he were to reply in the affirmative, he would find himself suddenly missing a head.

"He was captured on an investigative mission to Ventrux. The scientist responsible for blinding him has been incarcerated for life," he says, instead.

"So she's still alive?"

"Yes," Feemor replies, and meets the challenge in her question with a cool stare.

Nila sits back. A glint of metal flickers at her sleeve as she unfolds her hands. "I see. This is better than nothing."

And then: "I have another question, Master Jedi."

"Of course."

"Were you there, when it happened?"

"I was not. I took over Huei's training after that particular mission. I was not acquainted with him prior."

She zeroes in on the gap in that statement with effortless precision, almost a Makashi strike to the heart. "And his previous teacher?"

Feemor opens his mouth. Closes it.

"Ah." Nila leans forward, and Feemor resists the sudden impulse to edge his chair backwards. "I see," she says. "I want you to understand something, Master Ner'iah. I gave Huei to the Jedi because I wished him the best life possible – to nurture his gift in a manner which I knew he would not be able to do so here." She stands, and the scrape of her deadwood chair screeches harshly against coral. "I need you to convince me that it was not a mistake."

And there it is.

What does Feemor Ner'iah have to say, who has lost a lineage-brother to the dark side of the Force, whose former master scours the galaxy in a likely futile search for Feemor's youngest lineage-brother, sold to slavery?

But it is not about _him._ He is the mentor. It is never about him.

It is about _Huei._

"Huei is a gift," Feemor begins, and a smile spreads unbidden across his features, even though he knows it may be misunderstood. "He has a brave heart but he does not know it; compassion beyond his own understanding. At the time he lost his sight he had a master who did not care for these attributes above that of his skill in combat and hunting, but I have since observed him overcome those times with a fortitude that I can only watch in awe. Huei's actions on Ventrux saved hundreds more children from a similar fate, and he has not once thought that regrettable."

Nila blinks at him, a layer of moisture over her slate-grey eyes.

"So," Feemor sighs, "perhaps I cannot answer your question. Perhaps Huei could have flourished here, and I know he would have grown up well-loved in your care. But I do my best to teach, and pretend to be wise, while all along perhaps your son has taught me far more."

Nila's sits, slowly. She looks at him with new eyes; perhaps reading all the words that he dared not use. And then, unexpectedly, her lips curve into a smile. "I am glad to know you love him as much as I do."

Feemor chokes on his reply.

But their conversation warms considerably after that.

(:~:)

The waves are saying something.

Huei stands, one hand pressed to the smooth skin of the palm tree, and listens to their voices. He cannot see them, but the song of the waves rises in surging crescendos that taper into sighs. The inhale and exhale of each oncoming breaker rings in Huei's memories as forgotten words; a language he used to speak but has long forgotten. They seem to tremble like snatches of a song sung far-off at the edge of his hearing, broken phrases and half-formed chords. Try as he might, he cannot piece together lyrics or melody.

A rumble, far, far below his boots.

That too is a familiar dream; a thing so ingrained in his bones he knows he should understand it, but it slips through his webbed fingers like dust and ashes.

Why did his master bring him here?

Why is Obi-Wan gone?

Why is the Force so distant here, where it should be closest and brightest? He had thought, for a moment, when his childhood rhymes had surfaced in his memories like buried treasure, that he was a sailor returning home; but here, he is adrift without a port, and there is no star to steer by. He had felt much the same when Dooku set him adrift – without an anchor on an endless empty lake of ink-black water.

The wind rustles the palm fronds above his head, a _scritch-scratch_ that sounds not unlike stylus on flimsy.

Huei knows exactly what Obi-Wan would do, if he were here.

A trail of moisture slips out of the corner of one eyelid, draws its excruciatingly slow journey down to his chin.

Blast it.

Huei shucks his boots and cloak, unclips his utility belt and lets it drop, and walks barefoot into the sighing sea.


	15. Home is the Sailor (Part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this chapter: [The Sixth Station](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_apNFcDsRg&list=PLBl_4bDlHEJuKPVkmJURfq3WQ0O6Zn7IU&index=15)

Warm waves lap at Huei's feet, then his ankles, and knees, and hips.

The next breaker surges at him out of the blurred mist of the Force, and takes him under.

Huei exhales once, bubbles tickling his cheekbones–

_Child._

A voice in his head, melding into the roar of the currents as they heave at him; he is spun out, further, until his webbed feet leave the curved edge of the Gampassa's shell, and then–

_Child._

His eyes fly open instinctively as the Force crashes down on him all at once. Though he cannot see the sunlight through the water, he _senses_ all the same.

_Gampassa._

Glee Anselm to Huei Tori in this moment, through the eyes of the Gampassa, king of the oceans:

Endless, azure water, a realm deeper than the highest mountains of the land far-off and few, scattered patches of green on an ocean a whole world across, cycle after cycle of air and water, sky and sea, midnight depths and sunlit skies, breaths inhaled and exhaled over ponderous half-millenia, generations of Nautolans born and passing before one breath completed – rise, fall, and rise again; children that swim beside and laugh and run on the great expanse of shell, _Father, Mother, I caught a fish!_ Spears of mother-of-pearl and a city of coral, sea-birds above and sea-wraiths below, glowlamps in navy blue depths and sunlight lancing through the shallows, sea-songs of silverfish, deep, salt-scented notes from the deepsea creatures that murmur so low that their cries echo and warp a thousand times before reaching the surface–

Huei gasps in a breath of pure water, and breathes. His headtresses flicker with the scents of a thousand species.

He cannot see. But he _sees_ so much.

–and there, right beside him, languid and calm in the currents, a massive, ancient presence, each thought as slow and ponderous as the curling of the tide.

The Gampassa.

"Hello," Huei whispers into the water, a susurration of bubbles against his lips.

The brushing of that great mind against his own; an impression of a juvenile sea-bird curled in its nest, eased and cajoled to leave its warm burrow to spread its wings, rising on a thermal towards the sky.

"Yes, I've returned," Huei murmurs. "Because…because I–"

_Because I left him there, with Xanatos, in that Sith Temple._

The ache of knowing Obi-Wan is at the moment somewhere in the guts of a slave-ship light-years from home is only eclipsed by the pain of _not_ knowing where he would be; what would happen to him, or if they would ever meet again, brothers in all but blood.

The currents stir, and the Gampassa's thundering rumble thuds through Huei's headtresses, bringing with it the scent of the sea; not as a salt-limned sunset or sharp-scented waves, but the _ocean_ – the pheromones of a fish-swarm, the scent of whale-oil and sea-fronds, coral and rock and sulfur-tinged clouds from volcanic islands, half a world away.

_Listen._

Huei curls in on himself, shaken, drifting with the current.

The ancient mind breaks through his shields like a storm-surge through driftwood.

The sea-bird.

It flew far on its first flight; when it returns borne on the ochre flames of sunset, it has grown the full plumage of young adulthood, sharp-winged and smooth-beaked. Its eyes are scarred from battle, but it draws a straight line across the sky as it returns home.

"But I have not returned the same," Huei whispers.

The Gamapassa's presence flares, so bright in the Force that it sears Huei to the bone.

Far above, the sea-birds are taking flight; how Huei knows this, he is not sure.

" _Gampassa!"_ a child's voice shouts, out of the swirling depths of the Unifying Force, where it bleeds into the endless expanse of the ocean, even as the sea-birds shrieked as they took flight beside the laughing child.

That was–

That was Huei.

Huei, with stubby legs finally strong enough to walk out under open air, laughing at the seaside with his mother.

The Gampassa's presence curls around him, wraps him in what can only be described as an embrace.

_Welcome home._

An embrace without judgment; uncaring that he had no sight by which to see his old friend. His mother's embrace, so soft and careful and yet so filled with warmth; his master, whose face he has never seen, but yet teaches him to laugh where he had forgotten how.

Huei has not returned here unchanged, yes; and neither will Obi-Wan.

But should the Force will it that they should meet again, will they not still be friends forged in adversity and brothers in all but blood? Will they not greet each other with an embrace and a laugh – a wheeze, on Obi-Wan's part, but a glimmer to outshine it in the Force – and move on together?

_Wait_ , the Force murmurs, as the waves ebb and flow. _Wait, and listen._

The Gampassa's mind slips back into the bright background of the tide, and Huei reaches out at the loss, despite himself. But then the words of the Gampassa and the Force come to him again, and he relaxes into the current, letting them take him where it will.

The sea takes him and deposits him gently on the shore, splayed on his back in soaked tunics in the glorious afternoon warmth, the smooth steadiness of the Gampassa's shell at his shoulder blades and under his fingertips, the waves lapping at his knees.

The sea-birds are singing.

"Huei?" A voice from above. Feemor sounds slightly wary.

Huei breathes in a lungful of air that turns into a wet half-chuckle. He feels…almost drunk. On the Force, no less.

A rustle of cloth next to him, and a hand finds his shoulder. It brings him back – to the air and the sky, out of the timeless, borderless sea.

"I think I'm better now," Huei says, in reply to the question his master is not asking. After the intricacies of the Gampassa's vast, untamed mind, Feemor's Force-presence is like an open book.

Feemor's signature flares in relief, then mischief. "You look drunk."

"The Force," Huei says. "Just. I mean. _The Force_."

A pause.

Huei can hear the smile in Feemor's voice as his master replies, "I understand."

"Is this what it's like for Obi-Wan all the time?" Huei murmurs.

A snort, on Feemor's part. "Perhaps."

Huei sits up, slowly. Dabbles his hand in the water.

"I left him there," he says, quietly.

Feemor sighs. "The fault is not yours."

"I know," Huei says. He inhales, slowly. And then: "So I am all the more glad he will have the Force with him, no matter where he is."

Feemor's arm settles around Huei's shoulders, and a bearded chin rests on top of his head. "Yes."

Huei returns his master's hug, and although not everything is all right, and likely will not be all right for a long while to come, here, in this moment, the Force is more than enough.

The Gampassa glides on, through warm waters, as the sea-birds descend to nest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters will be posted in and around updates of The Silent Song!


End file.
